Michaelius sailed from Holland, January 24th, 1628, and arrived at the "Island of Manhatas," as he calls it, on the 7th of the succeeding April, and wrote the letter the following August- In it he says, " In my opinion, it is very expedient that the Lords Managers of this place [the Amsterdam Chamber of the West Indian Company) should furnish plain and precise instructions to their Governors that they may distinctly know how to regulate themselves in all difficult occurrences and events in public matter ; and at the same time that I should have all such Acta Synodalia, as are adopted in the Synods of Holland, both the special ones relating to this region' and those which are provincial and national, in relation to ecclesiastical points of difficulty, or at least such of them as in the judgment of the Reverend brothers at Amsterdam would be most likely to present themselves to us here." . . . The promise which the Lords Masters of the Company had made me of some acres or surveyed lands for me to make myself a home, instead of a free table which otherwise belonged to me is wholly of no avail. For their honors well know that their are no horses, cowi^

or laborers to be obtained here for money. Every one is short in these particulars and wants more."

This letter also proves incidentally, that slavery existed in "the Manhatas" at its date, the year before the enactment of the charter of 1629 which provided for their being furnished by the Company to the Patroons, as stated above, and to which has been so often, and so wrongly ascribed their first introduction in New York. Speaking of his fiimily matters, for his wife had died since his arrival leaving him with "two little daughters," Michaelius writes, "maidservants are not to be had, at least none whom they advise me to take; and the Angola slaves are thievish, lazy and useless trash." Evidently slaves had been by no means lately introduced in "the Manhatas " in 1628.