History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I
New Amsterdam, and that the value of the imports (supplies and goods) was 20,384 guilders, about 8,500 dollars, and that of the exports (furs and timber) were 45,050 guilders, about 14,000 dollars.*
It was simply as a station to collect furs from the Indians that Manhattan Island then had any value whatever. Such was the beginning of that "Province of New Netherland" in the year 1623, which 262 years later, in 1885, is the State and City of New York, the former with 5,000,000 of inhabitants, the latter with 1,250,000 people. And the island that was
3 Wassenaer, III. Doc. Hist. N. T., 47.
^De Lact, ]. X. Y. Uist. Coll., -Jd ouviis, 385. I. O'Call., 104.
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
tlicn bought for 24 dollars, now has a value so high up in the millions of dollars, that the mind with difficulty can take it in ; while the city built upon it, is the third in importance, size, and wealth in the civilized world, and the chiefest in the western hemisphere.
The Walloons had moved in the matter of leaving Holland for America in the year 1621, two years before the thirty families came out under Director May as mentioned above. They applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, British Ambassador at the Hague, to know, whether the King of England, James the First, would permit them "to settle in Virginia," in accordance with a petition setting forth the terms and conditions under which they desired to undertake the enterprise. This Petition of fifty-six heads of families, Walloon, and French, all of the Reformed Religion was presented to, and left, with Carleton, who sent it to Eng- 1 md, enclosed in a letter of his own favoring its object, dated the 19tli of July. 1621. Accompanying the petition was a written covenant in these words ; -- "We promise his Lordship the ambassador of the most serene king of Great Britain, that we will go to settle in Virginia, a part of his Majesty's dominions, at the earliest time practicable, and this under the conditions set forth in the articles we have communicated to his said lordship the ambassador, and not otherwise."