devolving again to the Company, and in caseitshouM devolve, to be redeemed and repossessed with twenty guilders per colonie to be paid to this Company, at the Chamber here {Holland), or to their commander there {New Netherland) within a year and six weeks after the same occurs, each at the Chamber where he originally sailed from." This continued without change till 1640, when the revised charter of that year, stated the same tenure more fully, in these words, "the lands remaining allodial, but the jurisdiction as of a perpetual hereditary fief, devolvable by death as well to females as to males, and fealty and homage for which is to be rendered to the Company, on each of such occasions with a pair of iron gauntlets, redeemable by twenty guilders within a year and six weeks, at the Assembly of the XIX here {in Amstfrdam), or before the Governor there {in New Amsterdam); with this understanding, that in case of division of said fief or jurisdiction, be it high, middle, or low, the parts shall be and remain of the same nature as was originally conferred on the whole, and fealty and homage must be rendered for each part thereof by a pair of iron gauntlets, redeemable by twenty guilders as aforesaid."

The Dutch words translated in the above quotation "a i)erpelual hereditary fief," and in the sixth article of the charter of 1629 "a perpetual inheritance," mean more than these English renderings, and express a technicality of the Dutch law which the latter does not convey. It is this. A feud, or fief, (these terms are synonymous) is thus defined in the Dutch law, "an hereditary indivisible use over the immoveable property of another, with a mutual obligation of protection on the one side, and a duty of homage and service on the other." ^ Such a fief, under the law, "was not divisible, except by charter and passed only per capita, or by stipulation in cases of intestacy, to the eldest male amongst the lawful children, or further descendants, of the last possessor; to males sprung from males, the nearest degree taking precedence of one more remote."^ These, the old fiefs of the Fatherland, were termed "recta fenda,'' right fiefs, and were the fiefs referred to in both the New Netherland charters of "Freedoms and Exemptions" and the above translations of them.