But the inhabitants of Westchester did not feel satisfied under the Dutch rule, and in the following August I of 1664 informed the commissioners of Her Majesty's affairs in New England of their arrest by the Dutch and the hardships they had to endure in the hold of a

1 N. Y. Col. Docs., 67.

^ 2>. Y. Col. Docs., xiii. 43; Laws of Xew Nethcrland, page 198. 3N. Y. rol. Docs., xi. 550. I ■'Idem, 527, 529. 5 Holland Docs., ii. page 219.

vessel and in a dungeon at the Manhattoes ; that the sole cause of their arrest was that they opposed the Dutch title to the lands ; that after their release some of their companions were driven away and the residue were enslaved. This was undoubtedly an allusion to the compulsory visit Wheeler and his friends made some years before to New Amsterdam. *

But Stuyvesant's contests with and suspicions of the unruly New England settlers at Westchester were soon ended. Charles II., of England, in March, 1664, liberally 2>resented to James, Duke of York, the whole colony of New Netherlands, with other possessions which he never owned. In August Colonel Richard NicoUs, with his English squadron and New England soldiers, captured the city of New Amsterdam, and in Se23tember, 1664, we can imagine that Wheeler and his fellow-citizens in Westchester village rejoiced in godly New England style over the downfall of the valiant Dutch Governor, Petrus Stuyvesant, and the accession of James, Duke of York, and his Governor, NicoUs, as lord proprietor of New York and Westchester township. '