point, let us proceed to
examine how their officers and Directors have conducted themselves
from time to time, having played with the managers as well as with the
people, as a cat does with a mouse. It would be possible to relate their
management from the beginning, but as most of us were not here then and
therefore not eye-witnesses, and as a long time has passed whereby it
has partly escaped recollection, and as in our view it was not so bad
then as afterwards when the land was made free and freemen began
to increase, we will pass by the beginning and let Mr. Lubbert van
Dincklaghen, Vice Director of New Netherland, describe the government
of Director Wouter van Twiller of which he is known to have information,
and will only speak of the last two sad and dire confusions (we would
say governments if we could) under Director Kieft, who is now no
more, but the evil of it lives after him; and of that under Director
Stuyvesant which still stands, if indeed that may be called standing
which lies completely under foot.

(1) Export duty.

(2) Nevertheless, the remonstrance of the Eight Men, October
28, 1644, _N.Y. Coll. Doc._, I. 209, did cause the reform of
the system of provincial government and the recall of Kieft.

The Directors here, though far from their masters, were close by their
profit. They have always known how to manage their own matters very
properly and with little loss, yet under pretext of the public business.
They have also conducted themselves just as if they were the sovereigns
of the country. As they desired to have it, so it always had to be; and
as they willed so was it done. "The Managers," they say, "are masters in
Fatherland, but we are masters in this land." As they understand it
it will go, there is no appeal. And it has not been difficult for them
hitherto to maintain this doctrine in practice; for the people were
few and for the most part very simple and uninformed, and besides,
they needed the Directors every day. And if perchance there were some
intelligent men among them, who could go upon their own feet, them it
was sought to oblige. They could not understand at first the arts of
the Directors which were always subtle and dark, so that these were
frequently successful and occasionally remained effective for a long
time. Director Kieft said himself, and let it be said also by others,
that he was sovereign in this country, or the same as the Prince in the
Netherlands. Thi