strations, and in a time of profound peace surprised the quiet town
of New Amsterdam with a hostile fleet and land force and a peremptory
demand for surrender. The only hindrance interposed was a few hours of
vain and angry bluster from Stuyvesant. The indifference of the Dutch
republic, which had from the beginning refused its colony any promise of
protection, and the sordid despotism of the Company, and the arrogant
contempt of popular rights manifested by its governors, seem to have
left no spark of patriotic loyalty alive in the population. With inert
indifference, if not even with satisfaction, the colony transferred its
allegiance to the British crown, henceforth sovereign from Maine to the
Carolinas. The rights of person and property, religious liberty, and
freedom of trade were stipulated in the capitulation.

The British government was happy in the character of Colonel Nicolls,
who came as commandant of the invading expedition and remained as
governor. Not only faithful to the terms of the surrender, but
considerate of the feelings and interests of the conquered province, he
gave the people small reason to regret the change of government. The
established Dutch church not only was not molested, but was continued in
full possession of its exceptional privileges. And it continued to
languish. At the time of the surrender the province contained "three
cities, thirty villages, and ten thousand inhabitants,"[78:1] and for
all these there were six ministers. The six soon dribbled away to
three, and for ten years these three continued without reinforcement.
This extreme feebleness of the clergy, the absence of any vigorous
church life among the laity, and the debilitating notion that the power
and the right to preach the gospel must be imported from Holland, put
the Dutch church at such a disadvantage as to invite aggression. Later
English governors showed no scruple in violating the spirit of the terms
of surrender and using their official power and influence to force the
establishment of the English church against the almost unanimous will of
the people. Property was unjustly taken and legal rights infringed to
this end, but the end was not attained. Colonel Morris, an earnest
Anglican, warned his friends against the folly of taking by force the
salaries of ministers chosen by the people and paying them over to "the
ministers of the church." "It may be a means of subsisting those
ministers, but they won't make many co