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.

They were drawn in accordance with the views and spirit of the age in which they had their birth, and should, and must, be judged in the light of that age if we wi)uld wish to form a lair and true opinion of them and the system they established. No more unjust, yet more common error, exists, than to make the views and spirit of this, our own age, the standard by which to judge the views, spiril, and actions of every age that has gone before it, and to praise or condemn, accordingly.

Judged by the lights of the seventeenth century these charters of Dutch Colonization were extremely free and liberal, far more so than those of any other nation at that time. It must be remembered, too, that, they were the work of an armed commercial organization, of the nature of those then existing, intent upon its own interests, as well as those of the nation to which it belonged ; an organization equally well adapted to triumph in the pursuits of peace, or conquer in those of war.