'•With regard to the English prisoners, lately brought hither from Vi'eedlandt, from the village which they call Westchester, who remain yet in confinement in the ship the Weigh-scales, it is unanimously concluded and resolved, that all those who before were on oath and allegiance of this government, and who therefore either for debts or other causes did run away, or against whom the attorney general supposes to have a just cause for indictment, these the aforesaid attorney general is authorized to secure in close confinement, and prosecute them agreeably to law. The remainder who either from New England or from other

» Tlie Sacliems Pennekek and Oratang were very troublesome to the Westcliester settlements in 1655. -- Editor, h Alb. Rpc. vol. ii. p. 283.

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER 159

places have been lured and decoyed by Mr. Pell or any other person to settle vvithui onr limits, of which district this city had a grant, to keep them in a civil arrest, either in the court house or any proper and convenient place, till a furtlier examination shall be instituted and our orders issued in conformity with these. Done in Council, in our fort at New Amsterdam, in New Nctherland, 14 March, 1G56.

Peter Stuyvesant. ■ ' ■ Nicassius de Sille.

" ■" La Montague.!^

On the 15tli of March, 1656, ihe attorney general presented his demand to the Director General and Council as plaintitf in the case.

Respectful Lords:

It is not only known to your Honors, but every one residing in this country, that since many years the district called VreedlandL was cultivated and inhabited in letters patent granted by your Honors and their predecessors by the Dutch, under your government, till the period of the general war in lfi43. Now it has happened that one Mr. Pell, residing at Onkeneg in New England, his dared against the rights and usages of Christian countries to pretend that he bought these lands of the natives, (which long since were purchased of them and paid by your Honors as evidenlly appears from the transfers in your records,) and actually made a beginning of settling and cultivating these lands, without your Honors previous knowledge or consent, directly contrary to the limits and decisions of 1650, concluded with tlie United Colonies of New England at Hartford, »> against which usurpation your attorney general, in his quality and in the name of the Lords his masters, had in due form entered his protest, w-hich the Lieutenant Wheeler, who there commands, not at all respecting, continues to remain there with his associates in planting and building, luring and accommodating our run-away inhabitants, vagrants and thieves, and others who for their bad conduct find there a refuge.