fore me, and especially
if they will admit of any delay, I shall refer myself to the good and
prudent advice of the Honorable Brethren, to whom I have already wholly
commended myself.

(1) I.e., acts of the synod of North Holland. North Holland
was not at this time a province, but merely a part of the
province of Holland, the chief of the seven United
Provinces. The national _Acta_ would probably be those of
the six fundamental synodical conventions of 1568-1586 and
the Synod of Dort.

As to the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and
wild, strangers to all decency, yea, uncivil and stupid as garden poles,
proficient in all wickedness and godlessness; devilish men, who serve
nobody but the Devil, that is, the spirit which in their language they
call Menetto; under which title they comprehend everything that is
subtle and crafty and beyond human skill and power. They have so much
witchcraft, divination, sorcery and wicked arts, that they can hardly be
held in by any bands or locks. They are as thievish and treacherous as
they are tall; and in cruelty they are altogether inhuman, more than
barbarous, far exceeding the Africans.(1)

(1) He had served on the west coast of Africa; see the
introduction.

I have written concerning this matter to several persons elsewhere,
not doubting that Brother Crol will have written sufficient to your
Reverence, or to the Honorable Directors; as also of the base treachery
and the murders which the Mohicans, at the upper part of this river,
had planned against Fort Orange, but which failed through the gracious
interposition of our Lord, for our good--who, when it pleases Him, knows
how to pour, unexpectedly, natural impulses into these unnatural men,
in order to prevent them. How these people can best be led to the true
knowledge of God and of the Mediator Christ, is hard to say. I cannot
myself wonder enough who it is that has imposed so much upon your
Reverence and many others in the Fatherland, concerning the docility of
these people and their good nature, the proper principia religionis and
vestigia legis naturae which are said to be among them; in whom I have
as yet been able to discover hardly a single good point, except that
they do not speak so jeeringly and so scoffingly of the godlike and
glorious majesty of their Creator as the Africans dare to do. But it may
be because they have no certain knowledge of Him, or scarce