government, in which
government we meet with several inconveniences, which do
much to trouble us, and which we find very uncomfortable,
and forasmuch as we have received information how it hath
pleased the Highest Majesty to move the heart of the King's
Majesty to grant unto your colony such enlargements as
comprehend the whole island, thereby opening a way for us,
as we hope, from our present bondage, to such liberties and
enlargements as your patent affords,

"Our humble petition is that, as we are already, according to our best
information, under the skirts of your patent, so you would be pleased
to cast over us the skirts of your government and protection; for
assuredly if you should leave us now, which we hope we have not cause
to fear, our lives, comforts and estates will be much endangered, as
woful experience makes manifest. For a countryman of ours, for
carrying a message to a neighbor plantation, from some of yourselves,
has been imprisoned for several weeks, and how long it will be
continued we know not."

This last sentence had reference to John Christie. It must be admitted
that this was a very mild way of putting the question, when it is
remembered that he came, commissioned by the Connecticut authorities,
at least so he represented it, to announce to the people in the Dutch
settlements, that they were no longer under the Dutch government, but
under that of Hartford.

This petition was speedily followed by vigorous measures, which were
undoubtedly countenanced, if not authorized, by the Connecticut
authorities. One Richard Panton, "whose commission was his sword and
whose power his pistol," threatened the people of Flatbush and other
Dutch villages in the neighborhood, with the pillage of their property
unless they would take the oath of allegiance to the Hartford
government and take up arms against the Dutch provincial authorities.

Such were the news which first greeted Governor Stuyvesant when he
returned, not a little dispirited, from his unsuccessful mission to
Boston. He was fully aware that he could bring forward no physical
power which could resist the encroachments of his unscrupulous
neighbors. He had no weapon to which he could resort but diplomatic
skill. He accordingly immediately sent a deputation of four of his
principal men to Hartford, still to make another attempt with the
authorities there to settle the boundary question, "so that all
further