Europe-- mostly honest, sturdy people, but poor and unresource The inducements so far offered by the AVest India Company were not tic sufficiently attractive to draw other classes to their transatlan lands, and the natural colonists of the New Netherland, the yeomen adand burghers of the United Provinces, finding no appearance ofvery vantage to offset the plain risks involved in emigration, were were reluctant to leave their native country, where conditions of life Ihis comfortable and profitable much beyond the average degree. rea ^ language strong following the in to alluded was reluctance J: lbm XIX. the of Assembly port made to the States-General by the more " The colonizing such wild and uncultivated countries demands of inhabitants than we can well supply; not so much through lack all that fact the population, in which our provinces abound, as from

HISTORY

WESTCHESTER

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who are inclined to do any sort of work here procure enough to eat without any trouble, and are therefore unwilling to go far from home on an uncertainty." It accordingly became a matter of serious consideration for the company to devise more effective colonizing plans. After careful deliberation, an elaborate series of provisions to this end was drawn up, entitled " Freedoms and Exemptions granted by the Assembly of the XIX. of the Privileged West India Company to all such as shall plant any colonies in New Netherlands which in June, 1G29, received the ratification of the States-General. As this document was the the patroonbasis upon which the celebrated patroonships, including ship of Yonkers, were founded, a brief summary of it is in order. y who should settle a " colAny member of the West India Compan and onic » (i. e., a plantation or landed proprietorship) in New Xetherlons, was entitled to become a beneficiary of the Privileges and Exempti counbut that right was withheld from all other persons.