Transcript:Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts/v10p272

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In May, 1647, Stuyvesant the new autocrat arrived in New Amsterdam, and considering that his own authority was involved, promptly took sides against the colonists and in support of the actions of the retiring Director Kieft. In some degree he favored Doughty, even as was afterward claimed going to the length of compelling the Flushing people to choose him for their minister.¹ However, they soon fell out. The Flushing people did not pay the salary as promised and we find him raising tobacco there.² The uncomfortable position in which he found himself in relation to the Director General is thus stated in the Remonstrance of New Netherland:

"In the beginning, also, when Director Kieft was still here, the English Clergyman requested permission to depart to the Islands or to Netherland, as he had lived and labored a long while without proper maintenance, and as his land was now confiscated; but he always received an unfavorable answer and was threatened with this and that. Finally, it came to pass that he may depart on condition of promising under his hand that, wherever he should go, he would not mention, nor complain of the manner he was treated here in New Netherland by Director Kieft or Stuyvesant.³

This was not denied, but it was asserted that he was in debt to the Company. Van der Donck was partially successful in obtaining better conditions for the people of Manhattan, but excited such animosity of the Company that he was refused passage on any of their ships, after his wife and children were embarked, and they sailed without him. It was at this time (1653), while van der Donck was still in Holland, that the Commissioners of the United Colonies, who were inquiring into the alleged purpose of Stuyvesant to use the Indians against New England, saw Mrs. van der Donck and her father at Staten Island.⁴ Mrs. van der Donck

[Notes continued from Previous Page ] country is like to pay for her, whose extremity was such as deserned pitty " (Ibid. iii. 250). And last there is in May, 1652, a grant to pay a final physician's bill (Ibid. iii. 276).

¹ H. Onderdonk, Queens County in Olden Times, p. 9.
² Records of New Amsterdam, i. 143, ii. 4.
³ Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, i. 811; cf. i. 305, 810, 332, 334, 341, 426, 427.
⁴ Plymouth Colony Records, x. 45, 46. It seems worth noting that Mrs. van der Donck could speak " very good Indian."