d the holy Scriptures in public and set the Psalms." A church
was to be organized so soon as there were two hundred inhabitants in
the colony.

[Illustration]

The Company wrote to Stuyvesant saying,

"The confidence we feel about the success and increase of
this new colony of which we hope to see some prominent
features next spring, when to all appearance, large numbers
of the exiled Waldenses will flock thither, as to an asylum,
induces us to send you orders to endeavor to purchase of the
Indians, before it can be accomplished by any other nation,
all that tract of land situated between the South river and
the Hook of the North river, to provide establishments for
these emigrants."

On Christmas day of 1656, three vessels containing one hundred and
sixty emigrants, sailed from the Texel. A wintry storm soon separated
them. The principal ship, the Prince Maurice, which had the largest
number of passengers, after a long voyage, was wrecked on the South
coast of Long island, near Fire island inlet, in the neighborhood of
the present town of Islip. It was midnight when the ship struck. As
soon as it was light the passengers and crew succeeded in reaching the
shore in their boats through the breakers and through vast masses of
floating ice.

They found upon the shore a bleak, barren, treeless waste, "without
weeds, grass or timber of any sort to make a fire." It was bitter
cold. A fierce wind swept the ocean and the land, and the sea ran so
high that it was expected every moment the ship would go to pieces.
These poor emigrants thus suddenly huddled upon the icy land, without
food and without shelter, were in imminent peril of perishing from
cold and starvation.

Their sufferings were so terrible that they were rejoiced to see some
Indians approaching over the wide plains, though they knew not whether
the savages would prove hostile or friendly. But the Indians came like
brothers, aided them in every way, and dispatched two swift runners
across the island to inform Governor Stuyvesant of the calamity. Some
sails were brought on shore, with which a temporary shelter from the
piercing blast was constructed, and enough food was secured to save
from absolute starvation.

The energetic governor immediately dispatched nine or ten lighters to
their assistance, and with needful supplies proceeded in person to the
scene of the disaster. Thus nearly all the cargo was saved and t