eased to about sixty
thousand.

On the 11th of May, 1647, Governor Stuyvesant arrived at Manhattan. He
was appointed as "Redresser General," of all colonial abuses. We have
but little knowledge of the early life of Peter Stuyvesant. The West
India Company had a colony upon the island of Curacoa, in the
Caribbean Sea. For some time Stuyvesant had been its efficient
Director. He was the son of a clergyman in Friesland, one of the
northern provinces of the Netherlands.

He received a good academic education, becoming quite a proficient in
the Latin language, of which accomplishment, it is said that he was
afterwards somewhat vain. At school he was impetuous, turbulent and
self-willed. Upon leaving the academy he entered the military service,
and soon developed such energy of character, such a spirit of
self-reliance and such administrative ability that he was appointed
director of the colony at Curacoa. He was recklessly courageous, and
was deemed somewhat unscrupulous in his absolutism. In an attack upon
the Portuguese island of Saint Martin, in the year 1644, which attack
was not deemed fully justifiable, he lost a leg. The wound rendered it
necessary for him to return to Holland in the autumn of 1644, for
surgical aid.

Upon his health being re-established, the Directors of the West India
Company, expressing much admiration for his Roman courage, appointed
him Governor of their colony in New Netherland, which was then in a
state of ruin. There were also under his sway the islands of Curacoa,
Buenaire and Amba. The Provincial Government presented him with a
paper of instructions very carefully drawn up. The one-man power,
which Kieft had exercised, was very considerably modified. Two
prominent officers, the Vice-Director and the Fiscal, were associated
with him in the administration of all civil and military affairs. They
were enjoined to take especial care that the English should not
further encroach upon the Company's territory. They were also directed
to do everything in their power to pacify the Indians and to restore
friendly relations with them. No fire-arms or ammunition were, under
any circumstances, to be sold to the Indians.

Van Diricklagen was associated with the Governor as Vice-Director, and
ensign Van Dyck, of whom the reader has before heard, was appointed
Fiscal, an important office corresponding with our post of Treasurer.
Quite a large number of emigrants, with abundant supplies, accompanied
this