It was a system they had tried, and under which they had lived, for more than two centuries, which all classes approved, and with which they were fully satisfied and thoroughly familiar. Hence it was, that when tlie West India Company undertook to colonize New Netherland, they Aturally adopted for that new po.ssession the same system which they knew had always worked well in the old, which they had always been accustomed to, and which was in entire consonance with the views, habits, manners, • and customs, of the people of the Bataviau re- I public.

It was not this system in New Netherland, but the ways and means of putting it into operation and carrying it out, which produced the delays, disputes, and changes, that began soon after the enactment of the charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629, and only

2 " Description of Holland," p. 7C. This work, by an Englishman, resident from infancy in Holland, was published in 1743, and is a full, fair and eood account of that countiy.

3 Ibid. ,79.

THE OKIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.

ended with the adoption of the revised and amended charter of Freedoms and Exemptions of 1640.

It is needful to consider only the most salient features of these instruments, for a simple reading of documents themselves, as above given in lull, will afford the best possible idea of the nature of the system of colonization, of w'hich they were the foundation, and upon which rests that civilization, which, increasing and improving in the course of years, and modified, not abrogated, by a subsequent change of dominion and rulers, now constitutes the pride and glory of the great Empire State of New York.