"Michael Jansen went to New Netherland as a farmer's man in the employ of the proprietors of Renselaerswyck. He made his fortune in the colony in a few years, but not being able to agree with the officers, finally came to live upon the island Manhatans. He would have come here himself, but the accounts between him and the colony not being settled, in which the proprietors did not consider themselves indebted as he claimed, Jan Evertsen came over in his stead.

"Thomas Hall went to the South River in 1636, in the employ of Mr. Holmes, an Englishman, who intended to take Fort Nassau and rob us of the South River. This Thomas Hall ran away from his master, came to the Manhatans and hired himself as a farmer's man to Jacob Van Curlur. Being a freeman he has made a tobacco plantation upon the land of that noted individual, Wouter Van Twyler. Thomas Hall dwells at present upon a small bowery belonging to the Honorable Company. ́

"Elbert Elbertsen went to the country as a farmer's boy at about ten or eleven years of age, in the service of Wouter Van Twyler, and has never had any land of his own. About three years ago he married the widow of Gerret Wolphertsen, (brother of the before mentioned Jacob Van Couwenhoven,) and from that time to this has been indebted to the Company, and would be very glad to get rid of paying.

"Govert Loockmans, brother in law of Jacob Van Couwenhoven, went to New Netherland in the yacht St. Martin, in the year 1633, as a cook's mate, and was taken by Wouter Van Twyler into the service of the Company, in which service he profited somewhat. He became a freeman, and finally took charge of the trading business for Gilles Verbruggen and his Company. This Loockmans owes gratitude to the Company, next to God, for his elevation, and ought not advise its removal from the country.

"Hendrick Kip is a tailor, and has never suffered any loss in New Netherland to our knowledge.

Jan Evertsen-bout, formerly an officer of the Company, came the last time in the year 1634, with the ship Eendracht, (Union,) in the service of the Honorable Michiel Paauw, and lived in Pavonia until the year 1643, and prospered moderately. As the Honorable Company purchased the property of the Heer Paauw, the said Jan Evertsen having the property, succeeded well in the service of the Company, but as his house and barn at Pavonia were burnt down in the war, he appeared to take that as a cause for complaint. It is here to be remarked, that the Honorable Company paid 26,000 guilders for the colony of the Heer Paauw. The said Jan Evertsen built his house upon the land and had given nothing for his farm, which yielded good wheat. Long afterwards his house was burnt. The land and a poor unfinished house, with a few cattle, he has sold to Michiel Jansen for eight thousand guilders.

"In fine, these people, to give their doings a gloss, say that they are bound by conscience and compelled by reason; but if that were the case they would not assail their benefactors, the Company and others, and endeavor to deprive them of this noble country, by advising their removal, now that it begins to be like something, and may hereafter be of some advantage to the Company, and now that many of the inhabitants are themselves in a better condition than ever, endeavors caused apparently by the ambition of many, &c.

IX.

NEW NETHERLAND IN 1627.

LETTER FROM

ISAACK DE RASIERES TO SAMUEL BLOMMAERT,

FOUND IN THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT THE HAGUE,

AND

TRANSMITTED BY DR. M. F. A. G. CAMPBELL TO THE

N. Y. HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DUTCH

BY J. ROMEYN BRODHEAD.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. II.

29

J. ROMEYN BRODHEAD, Esq.,

U. S. Legation, London.

Royal Library, the Hague, June 10, 1848.

DEAR SIR-Allow me, as a proof of my lasting and growing sympathies for the American Union, and in it for New York, (our old Nieuw Nederlandt,) to send you the enclosed statement of its situation at a brief period after it became our West India Colony.

The priority of its date over Van der Donck's description, may give to it an historical value which doubtless will induce you to judge it worthy of being joined to so many more valuable documents gathered by you in Europe.

The person to whom the writer, Isaack de Rasieres, addresses his note, Mr. Blommaert, was a member of the West India Company for Amsterdam; and from the whole, I judge de Rasieres was an inferior officer of that same company, sent over in het wapen van Amsterdam," in order to keep his chiefs well informed of the real state of the colony. Unhappily, from the Cahier, (of 16 pages, in folio,) the two interior ones (pages 7-10) are wanting, and vainly I tried to find them out wherever they might be. The piece itself being an original, was joined with others, most of them regarding our West India Colonies in Brazil, in a parcel newly bought for this Royal Library; thus explaining the fact that it was not shown to you during your investigations at the Hague.

Be so kind, sir, as to offer this copy to the Historical Society of New York, in my name, not quite unknown to them, since you kindly mentioned it in your Report of October, 1841, about the historical investigations performed by you in the Netherlands. I am sure I could not choose a more worthy interpreter of my sentiments, nor one more agreeable to the Society than the former Historical Agent of New York. This piece will increase the number of the documents in the period between 1614 and 1640, the scarcity of which, you deplored in your Report.

From the general dispersion of our West India Colonial Archives, it can hardly fail to happen, I think, and especially considering my actual position as Second Librarian, that from time to time new documents about New Netherland will occur to my attention, on public or private sale; and I hardly need to assure you, sir, that I will be attentive to their appearance, and if possible lay hand on them, and make them follow, in original or copy, de Rasieres' statement.

Accept, dear sir, the assurances of my perfect consideration, and believe me,

as ever,

Your truly obedient servant,

M. F. A. G. CAMPBELL.

NOTE.

WHILE engaged in making researches as Agent of the State of New York, in the Archives at the Hague, in 1841, it occurred to me that the MSS. Department of the Royal Library there, might contain something relating to our history; and with the assistance of Mr. Campbell, one of the Deputy Librarians, a careful examina tion was accordingly made in that Repository. But with the exception of the fragment of one manuscript, a copy of which is now in the Secretary of State's office at Albany, [Hol. Doc. vol. III. p. 90,] nothing was then found. It seems, however, that a parcel of MSS. has recently been purchased for the Library, and among these, Mr. Campbell's kind research has detected the letter a copy of which he has made for the New York Historical Society.

In the following translation, I have endeavored to render, as literally as possible, the original of a document, the high value of which will be readily appreciated, when it is considered that it is the earliest description we have of the Colony of New Netherland and its neighborhood, from an eye witness.

WASSENAER, it is true, in his " Historische Verhael,”- -a very rare work, which I have lately had the good fortune to meet with in London gives several very interesting particulars respecting New Netherland, as early as 1623 and 1624; and we all know that De LAET published in 1625 an account of the discoveries of Hudson and the other early navigators to our coast, whose journals, he distinctly states, he had before him when he wrote. But the earliest detailed description of the Island of New York, by a person who visited it himself, in 1626, is now for the first time brought to light.

It will be remembered that among the documents found in the Archives at the Hague, is a letter of Mr. P. Schagen, to the States General, dated at Amsterdam, November 5, 1626, [Hol. Doc. Vol. I. p. 155,] in which he reports the arrival of the ship" Arms of Amsterdam," which sailed from the North River on the 23d of September, and brought the intelligence of the purchase of Manhattan Island from the Indians, for the sum of about TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS.

The writer of the following letter, Isaack de Rasieres, went out passenger in this very ship, which arrived in New Netherland, as he tells us, on the 27th of July, 1626; and as the purchase of the

Island of Manhattan was made before the 23d of September following, when the "Arms of Amsterdam" returned to Holland, it is quite probable he was himself one of the witnesses of that interesting event.

De Rasieres, (whose name has been variously and incorrectly spelled in our published Documents,) seems to have been a French Protestant, whose ancestors, seeking refuge from persecution, settled themselves on the river Waal, in Guelderland, and were hence called "Walloons." He was probably a protégé of Mr. Samuel Blommaert, one of the leading Directors of the West India Company, to whom, as a mark of his gratitude, he addressed his interesting letter. On his arrival at New Netherland, De Rasieres became "Opper Koopman," or chief commissary under Director Minuit, and also acted as Secretary of the Colony. In this capacity he conducted a correspondence with Governor Bradford of New Plymouth, in March, 1627; and in the following October, he was himself despatched on an embassy to that colony, where he was honorably received by Bradford, who speaks of him as the Dutch "Upper Commies, or chief merchant, and second to the Governor; a man of fair and genteel behavior,"-adding that he "soon after fell into disgrace among them by reason of their factions."

This is all we know of De Rasieres; and without any precise information as to the cause of the seizure of his "things and notes" which he mentions in the beginning of his letter, we cannot but regret a circumstance but for which, as he himself tells us, we should perhaps have been gratified by a still more ample and detailed account than the one he has now left us, of the early days of New Netherland.

De Rasieres' letter has no date ;-but it was evidently written from memory-and after his return to Holland-probably about the close of 1627. Unfortunately, it is defective; and, judging from the part immediately following the hiatus, we may reasonably infer that the missing portion would have been of the highest interest to us. It is quite probable that De Rasieres gave some particulars of the purchase of the Island, as well as of the political and commercial situation of the infant colony, and of the topography of the country between Manhattan and Narragansett Bay. But still, quite enough remains to us to induce lively congratulation that a happy chance has now placed so precious a fragment within our reach. J. ROMEYN BRODHEAD.

London, 17th August, 1848.