Free colonists were defined to be those who should " remove to New Netherland with five souls above fifteen years," and all such were to be granted by the director-general " one hundred morgens (two hundred acres) of land, contiguous one to the other, wherever they please to select." The colonists were put on precisely the same footing as thepatroons in matters of trade privilege, and, in fact, enjoyed all the material rights granted to the patroons except those of bearing a title and administering great landed estates, which, however, were equally within their reach in case of their ability to comply with the requirement for the transportation from the old country and introduction', into the new of fifty bona fide settlers. The company assumed the responsibility of providing and maintaining " good and suitable of the sick"; and it excomforters preachers, tended to theschoolmasters, free colonists, and no less than the colonists of the patroons, exemption from all taxes for a certain period. The former clause regarding negroes Mas renewed in about the same language, as follows: "The company shall exert itself to provide the patroons and colonists, on their order, with as many blacks as possible, without, however, being further or longer obligated thereto than shall be agreeable." Thus from 1629 to 1640 three distinct plans for promoting the settlement of New Netherland were formulated and spread before the public. The first plan, after being tested for nine years, was found a complete failure, because based upon the theory that colonization should naturally and would most effectively proceed from the patronage of the rich, who, acquiring as a free gift the honors of title and the dignities of landed proprietorship, would, it was thought, readily support those honors and dignities by the substance of an established vassalage. It was soon found that such a theory was quite incapable of application to a country as yet undeveloped, and that the sole reliable and solid colonization in the conditions which had to be dealt with would be that pursued on the democratic principle and undertaken in their independent capacity by citizens of average means and ordinary aims.