.

Vestri et officio et effectu,(1)

(1) Yours both officially and actually.

JOHANNES MEGPOLENSIS. SAMUEL DRISSIUS.

Amsterdam, in New Netherland, the 5th of August, 1657.

Revs. Megapolensis and Drisius to the Classis of Amsterdam (October 25,
1657).

Brethren in Christ:

Since our last letter, which we hope you are receiving about this time,
we have sent in a petition in relation to the Lutheran minister, Joannes
Ernestus Gutwasser. Having marked this on its margin, we have sent it
to the Rev. Brethren of the Classis. We hope that the Classis will take
care that, if possible, no other be sent over, as it is easier to send
out an enemy than afterward to thrust him out. We have the promise that
the magistrates here will compel him to leave with the ship De Wage. It
is said that there has been collected for him at Fort Orange a hundred
beaver skins, which are valued here at eight hundred guilders, and which
is the surest pay in this country. What has been collected here, we
cannot tell. Our magistrates have forbidden him to preach, as he has
received no authority from the Directors at Amsterdam for that purpose.
Yet we hear that the Hon. Directors at Amsterdam gave him permission to
come over. We have stated in a previous letter the injurious tendency of
this with reference to the prosperity of our church.

Lately we have been troubled by others. Some time since, a shoemaker,(1)
leaving his wife and children, came here and preached in conventicles.
He was fined, and not being able to pay, was sent away. Again a little
while ago there arrived here a ship with Quakers, as they are called.
They went away to New England, or more particularly, to Rhode Island,
a place of errorists and enthusiasts. It is called by the English
themselves the latrina(2) of New England. They left several behind
them here, who labored to create excitement and tumult among the
people--particularly two women, the one about twenty, and the other
about twenty-eight.(3) These were quite outrageous. After being examined
and placed in prison, they were sent away. Subsequently a young man at
Hempstead, an English town under the government, aged about twenty-three
or twenty-four years,(4) was arrested, and brought thence, seven
leagues. He had pursued a similar course and brought several under
his influence. The magistrate, in order to repress the evil in the
beginning, after he had kept him in confinement for several days,
adjudged that