HISTORY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
 

CHAPTER    VIII.
 

APPEALS FOE ASSISTANCE.

Confiscation of Shoes.—The Doomed Village.—Trials for Wast of Money.—
Action of the West India Company. —Kieft's Quarrels. —The War ended. —
The great Indian Treaty of Peace. —Minerals. — The Kew School. — Adriaen
Van der Donck. — Van Rensselaer's Death. —The new Governor. — Stuyve¬
sant's Reception. — Governor Stuyvesant. —Mrs. Peter Stuyvesant. — Mrs.
Bayard.

THE front line of progress is never uniform. We can indeed assert
with truth that New Netherland generally advanced; but an inti¬
mate acquaintance with its early history shows that at many points
it was stationary; and now we have come to one where it actuaUy receded,
until the only wonder is that the province under that style and power
did not become entirely extinct.

Indian wars are never invested with any of the fieeting splendors
which embellish other armed conflicts. They add no luster to the pages,
of history. They furnish little philosophy or instruction. We hav&
in this instance no military skill to chronicle, no marshaling of hosts,
no clash of serried columns. A sense of helplessness, an atmosphere of
terror, an indefinable dread, take the place of heroism and romance as.
usually pictured with the shock of battles. The "Eight Men" whom
the people of New Netherland had chosen to think and act for them
appealed to their English neighbors at New Haven for assistance in their
great distress. The reply was cool and courteous, but decidedly negative.
It was embodied in these words, "We are not satisfied that your war
with the Indians is just."

Just or unjust, they must aU perish now without relief     So

' they told the whole agonizing story in a most eloquent letter to.

the Amsterdam Chamber,  praying for immediate  and  decisive  help.^

This document is supposed to have been penned by Cornelis Melyn^ who,

1 The Eight Men to the Amsterdam Chamber, Col. Doc, Vol. I. 138, 139.