Mr. Blommaert:

As I feel myself much bound to your service, and in return know not how
otherwise to recompense you than by this slight memoir, (wherein I have
in part comprised as much as was in my power concerning the situation
of New Netherland and its neighbors, and should in many things have
been able to treat of or write the same more in detail, and better than
I have now done, but that my things and notes, which would have been of
service to me herein, have been taken away from me), I will beg you to
be pleased to receive this, on account of my bounden service, etc.

On the 27th of July, Anno 1626, by the help of God, I arrived with the
ship The Arms of Amsterdam, before the bay of the great Mauritse River,
sailing into it about a musket shot from Godyn's Point, into Coenraet's
Bay; (because there the greatest depth is, since from the east point
there stretches out a sand bank on which there is only from 9 to 14
feet of water), then sailed on, northeast and north-northeast, to about
half way from the low sand bank called Godyn's Point to the
Hamels-Hoofden, the mouth of the river, where we found at half ebb 16,
17, 18 feet water, and which is a sandy reef a musket shot broad,
stretching for the most part northeast and southwest, quite across,
and, according to my opinion, having been formed there by the stream,
inasmuch as the flood runs into the bay from the sea, east-southeast;
the depth at Godyn's Point is caused by the tide flowing out along
there with such rapidity.

Between the Hamels-Hoofden the width is about a cannon's shot of 2,000
[yards]; the depth 10, 11, 12 fathoms. They are tolerably high points,
and well wooded. The west point is an island, inhabited by from 80 to
90 savages, who support themselves by planting maize. The east point
is a very large island, full 24-leagues long, stretching east by south
and east-southeast along the sea-coast, from the river to the east end
of the Fisher's Hook. In some places it is from three to four leagues
broad, and it has several creeks and bays, where many savages dwell,
who support themselves by planting maize and making sewan, and who are
called Souwenos and Sinnecox. It is also full of oaks, elms, walnut
and fir trees, also wild cedar and chestnut trees. The tribes are held
in subjection by, and are tributary to, the Pyquans, hereafter named.
The land is in many places good, and fit for ploughing and sowing. It
has many fine valleys, where there