The Dutch Re Possess and Re-Surrender the Province

Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut, with whom Stuyvesant was on friendly terms, had joined the English squadron. Nicolls sent him to Stuyvesant as an ambassador, with a letter in which was repeated the demand for a surrender. The two governors met at the gate of the fort. When Stuyvesant read the letter, he promptly refused to comply. Closing the gate, he retired to the council chamber and laid the letter before his cabinet and the magistrates. They said, "Read the letter to the people and so get their mind." The governor stoutly refused. The council and magistrates as stoutly insisted that he should do so, when the enraged governor, who had fairly earned the title of "Peter the Headstrong," unable to control his passion, tore the letter into pieces. The people at work on the palisades, hearing of this, hastened to the State-House, where a large number of citizens were soon gathered. They sent a deputation to the fort to demand the letter. Stuyvesant stormed. The deputies were inflexible, and a fair copy of the letter was made from the pieces, taken to the State-House and read to the inhabitants. At that time the population of New Amsterdam did not exceed fifteen hundred souls. There were not more than two hundred men, excepting the little garrison, capable of bearing arms.

The impatient Nicolls sent a message to the silent governor, saying: "I shall come for your answer to-morrow with ships and soldiers," and anchored two war-vessels between the fort and the Governor's Island. Stuyvesant's proud will would not bend to circumstances, and from the ramparts of the fort he saw their preparation for attack, unmoved. And when men, women and children, and even his beloved son, Balthazzar, entreated him to surrender that the lives and property of the citizens might be spared, he replied: "I had much rather be carried out dead." At length, when the magistrates, the clergy and many of the principal citizens entreated him, the proud old governor, who had "a heart as big as an ox and a head that would have set adamant to scorn," consented to capitulate. He had held out for a week. On Monday morning, the 8th of September, 1664, he led his troops from the fort to a ship on which they were embarked for Holland, and an hour afterward the red cross of St. George, as the flag of England (whose most conspicuous figure is a red cross) is sometimes poetically called, was floating over Fort Amsterdam, the name of which was changed to Fort James, in compliment to the duke.

The remainder of New Netherland soon passed into the possession of the English, and the city and province were named New York, also in compliment to the duke. Colonel Nicolls, whom the duke had appointed his deputy-governor, was so proclaimed by the magistrates of the city; and all officers within the domain of New Netherland were required to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown.

In the curious fort the new governor made his abode. It must have appeared ludicrous as a fortification, to the eyes of an experienced European soldier like Nicolls. It contained besides the governor's house and barracks, a steep gambrel-roofed church with a high tower, a wind-mill, gallows, pillory, whipping-post, prison, and tall flag-staff. There was, generally, a cheerful submission to the conquerors on the part of the inhabitants, and profound quiet reigned in New York after the turmoil of the surrender.

So passed into the domain of perfected history the Dutch dominion in America, after an existence of half a century. By that unrighteous seizure of a territory which had been discovered and settled by the Dutch, England became the mistress of all the domain stretching along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean from Florida to Acadie, and westward across the entire continent. But upon New Netherland the Dutch, in that brief space of time, had made so deep an impression of their institutions, their social and religious habits, their modes of thought and peculiarities of character, that, like the Greeks when overcome by the brute force of the Romans, they remained unconquered in the loftier aspect of the case. The best characteristics of the Dutch of New Netherland are now, after the lapse of more than two centuries, marked features in the society of New York.

In 1665, Stuyvesant went to Holland to report to his superiors. They wished to shift the responsibility of the disaster from their shoulders to that of their last director. They declared that the governor had not done his duty, and asked the States-General to disapprove of "the scandalous surrender" of New Netherland. Stuyvesant made a similar counter-charge and begged the States-General to come to a speedy decision of his case, that he might return to America for his family. Their High Mightinesses, as the representatives of Holland were called, required him to answer the charges of the West India Company. He sent to New York for sworn testimony, and at the end of six months he made an able report, its allegations sustained by unimpeachable witnesses. Among other affidavits was that of Van Ruyven, the then agent of the Company at New York and former secretary of the province, in which it was distinctly charged that the disaster was owing to the neglect of the Company. The latter made a petulant rejoinder, when circumstances put an end to the dispute. War between England and Holland, then raging, was ended by the peace concluded at Breda in 1667, when the latter relinquished to the former its claim to New Netherland. This finished the controversy between Stuyvesant and the West India Company.