Claes Sinits, a harmless Dutchman, had built a small house ou the East River neiir Harlem, on the Manhattan side, now One Hundred and Twenty-third Street, near the river. He was a wheelwright by trade. The young savage came one day and offered to barter some beaver skins for duffels, and while Smits was stooping over the chest in which he kept the goods the Indian killed him with an axe, i)lundered the house and escaped with his booty into Westchester.

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VCl.l.lAW PAPERS P.I7. /.a^

Governor Kieft demanded satisfaction from the tribe ; the sachem refused to give him up and soldiers were sent to arrest him, but they failed to do so.* The prudent burghers of New Amsterdam were opposed to a war, and the director very wisely saw that if one was begun he would have to bear the blame. He therefore sought counsel of the community, and the twelve men, from whom, by the charter of the company, he was directed to ask advice agreed that Smits' murder should be avenged, but they thought that " God and the opportunity" should be taken into consideration and that the director should make the necessary preparations. They advised that trade and intercourse with the savages should in the meantime be maintained and no hostile measures should be adopted against any one but the murderer until the hunting season was ended, and then it would be proper to send out two parties, one from the Sound or East River side and the other from the Hudson