ntry, but it never began to be
settled until every one had liberty to trade with the Indians, inasmuch
as up to this time no one calculated to remain there longer than
the expiration of his bounden time, and therefore they did not apply
themselves to agriculture. Yea, even the colony of Renselaerwyck was of
little consequence; but as soon as it was permitted, many servants,
who had some money coming to them from the Company, applied for their
discharge, built houses and formed plantations, spread themselves far
and wide, each seeking the best land, and to be nearest the Indians in
order thus to trade with them easily, others bought barks with which to
trade goods at the North and at the South, and as the Lords Directors
gave free passage from Holland thither, that also caused some to come.
On the other hand, the English came also from both Virginia and New
England. Firstly, many servants, whose time with their masters had
expired, on account of the good opportunity to plant tobacco here,
afterwards families and finally entire colonies, forced to quit that
place both to enjoy freedom of conscience and to escape from the
insupportable government of New England and because many more
commodities were easier to be obtained here than there, so that in place
of seven farms and two or three plantations which were here, one saw
thirty farms, as well cultivated and stocked with cattle as in Europe,
and a hundred plantations which in two or three [years] would have
become well arranged farms. For after the tobacco was out of the ground,
corn was thrown in there without ploughing. In winter men were busy
preparing new lands. Five English colonies which by contract had
[settled] under us on equal terms as the others. Each of these was in
appearance not less than a hundred families strong, exclusive of the
colony of Rensselaers Wyck which is prospering, with that of Myndert
Meyndertsz(2) and Cornelis Melyn,(3) who began first, also the village
New Amsterdam around the fort, a hundred families, so that there was
appearance of producing supplies in a year for fourteen thousand souls,
without straining the country, and had there been no want of laborers
or farm servants twice as much could have been raised, considering that
fifty lasts of rye and fifty lasts of peas still remained over around
the fort after a large quantity had been burnt and destroyed by the
Indians, who in a short time nearly brought this country to nought and
had well