Stuyvesant on his return refused him access to the records, and thus defeated his plan, and he then, in all probability, consented to the publication of what had already been printed in Holland. He died in 1G55, about two years after his return to America," and in the same year the first edition of his work that we now have, was issued in Amsterdam, with a view of New Amsterdam inserted.* A second edition was issued in 1G56, also in Amsterdam, without the view, but containing a map of New Netherland. This book was entitled! "Beschryvin I. van Niew Nederlandt," or, " A Desci'iption of New Netherland" (such as it now is) Comprehending the nature, character, situation and Fruitfulness of

1 1. Col. Hist., 476. =1. Col. Hist., 476, 478.

3 Ibid., 485. <Ibid., 532.

51. Col. Hist., 531, 532. 6 N Y. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d Series, vol. ii. 258. - I. Col. Hist., 533 ; II. O'Call., 531. It is a small 4to vol. of 104 pages, with an iutroduction of 5 pages.

that Country," &c., &c., with an account of the manners and customs of the Indians, and of the natural history of the Beaver." This and the "Vertoogh" or " Remonstrance" referred to before, published in 1650, which was a contemporaneous relation of events in New Netherland, historical, civil, and military, are the two most valuable and authentic accounts of New Netherland and its early history and condition, that exist, and are the sources to which all writers ever since, have gone for information on the early history of what is now New York. The first named work was first published in English, only in 1841, in the first volume of the second series of the Collections of the New York Historical Society, the translation having been made by the late General Jeremiah Johnson of Brooklyn.