Among the names are those well known in New Amsterdam from that day to this, as De Forest, De La Montagne, Lambert, Le Roy, Du Puy, and others, as good, honest, upright people. The Lords in Council referred the application to the Virginia Company, who received it very coldly, suggested a few modifications and declined any assistance, in money or in transportation. This ended the matter with the English, and these "Walloons as well as French," afterwards made arrangements with the West India Company to go to New Netherland, which were carried out under May in 1623 as mentioned before.

This petition to the British King contained seven articles specifying in detail, the conditions and terms under which, these first colonists desired to enter upon the work of colonization, and is therefore of the greatest value as acquainting us, beyond cavil, with the views and ideas of those who actually did begin that work in what is now the City and State of New York.'

In this document appears the very earliest mention of the land tenure which the first colonists of New York desired and asked for. It was that with which they were familiar, and which they fully understood,

iThi3 petition is given at length, with an engravingof the " round nibin" ami its signatures, in tlie valuable "History of the HuRuennt Euiigratiun," by the Rev. Dr. C. W. Baird, vol. I. p. 158, just published.

and under which they had always lived, and was based on fealty, homage, and manorial rights, as fixed by the Roman law, with which alone they were acquainted, and which under the West India Company was established as the law of New Netherland, and governed it till its conquest by the English in 1664. The articles of this " petition" numbers five and six, are in these words (The whole is in French, and this is the translation) :