tly the representatives of the people. Carefully as the
functions of the Nine Men were limited, they constituted a permanent
element in the governmental system, as the Twelve Men and Eight Men
had not. It was inevitable that sooner or later they should become the
mouthpiece of popular discontent, which was rapidly increasing under the
unprosperous condition of the province and the burdensome taxes, customs
and other restrictions imposed upon its economic life.

In December, 1648, the board was partly renewed. One of the new members,
Adriaen van der Donck, a lawyer from Breda, who from 1641 to 1646 had
been schout for the patroon at Renssellaerwyck, soon became the leading
spirit of the new board. Their sense of popular grievances increasing,
they planned to send a deputation to the mother country to remonstrate.
Stuyvesant opposed, arrested Van der Donck, seized some of his papers,
and expelled him from the board. Nevertheless, a bold memorial to the
States General was prepared, and was signed on July 26, 1649, "in the
name and on the behalf of the commonalty of New Netherland," by Van der
Donck and ten others, present or former members of the board of Nine
Men. In this memorial, which is printed in _Documents relating to the
Colonial History of New York_, I. 259-261, the representatives request
the Dutch government to enact measures for the encouragement of
emigration to the province, to grant "suitable municipal [or civil]
government, ...somewhat resembling the laudable government of the
Fatherland," to accord greater economic freedom, and to settle with
foreign governments those disputes respecting colonial boundaries and
jurisdiction the constant agitation of which so unsettled the province
and impeded its growth.

The following document accompanied the memorial, bearing date two days
later, July 28, 1649, and was signed by the same eleven men. It is
considered probable that Adriaen van der Donck was its main author. Its
first part, descriptive of the province, reads like a preliminary
sketch for his _Beschryvinge van Nieuw-Nederlant_ ("Description of New
Netherland"), a very interesting work published at Amsterdam six years
later (1665, second edition 1656), and of which a translation appears in
the _Collections of the New York Historical Society_, second series, I.
125-242.

With respect to the remaining, or political portion of its contents, it
is only fair for the reader to remember that it is a body of ex par