Colonial Children | ||
47. How the Englishmen sailed past New Amsterdam
BY DAVID DE VRIES (1612)
WHEN we arrived before Fort Amsterdam, we found a Company's ship
there with a prize taken on the way laden with
sugar.[175] She had brought over the new
governor, Wouter Van Twiller. He had been a clerk in
NEW AMSTERDAM.
[Description: Black and white illustration of the coast of a town, viewed
from the water.]
A few days later, on the eighteenth of April, an Englishman arrived here, who came from New England to trade up the Hudson River. This Englishman invited the governor to come and see him. I went with them, in company with a number of officers, who became drunk and got into such high words that the Englishman could not understand how it was that there should be such unruliness among the officers of the company, nor why the governor should have not more control over them; he was not accustomed to such conduct among his countrymen. The Englishman and his crew remained six or seven days, lying before the fort, and then said that he wished to go up the river, and that the land belonged to the English. This we denied, declaring that they had never made any settlement there.
On the twenty-fourth, however, the Englishman weighed anchor and sailed up the river to Fort Orange.[176] Then Governor Wouter Van Twiller assembled all his forces before his door, had a cask of wine brought out, filled a bumper, and cried out for those who loved the Prince of Orange[177] and him to do the same as he did, and protect him from the outrage of the Englishman who was already out of sight, sailing up the river. The people all began to laugh at him; for they understood well how to drink dry the cask of wine, but did not wish to trouble the Englishman, saying that they were friends.
As I sat at the table with him at noon I told him that he had been very foolish, as the Englishman had no permission to navigate in the river, but only a paper of. a custom house, stating that he had paid so much duty and might sail with so many passengers to New England, and not to New Netherlands. I
A NEW YORK LADY.
[Description: Black and white illustration]
Fort Amsterdam, now New York City, was the principal trading post of the Dutch in New Netherlands. The "Company" was Dutch West India Company, which managed the Colony.
Colonial Children | ||