Colve caused its citizens to nominate to him six of their number best qualified to act as magistrates, all of whom should be of the Reformed Christian religion, and at least one-half men of Dutch nationality. This action as to Fordham, however, was in part the result of the initiative of the people of the place, who desired a new status of village government. The secretary of the province under Colve, it is worthy of mention, was Cornelius Steenwyck, who subsequently became the owner of the Manor of Fordham. During the Dutch restoration, which lasted fifteen months, New York province (or the Province of New Orange, as it was styled) did not revert to the proprietorship of the Dutch West India Company, but was subject direct and solely to the States-General of the Netherlands. The great commercial corporation which had settled it and ruled it for forty-one years had fallen upon unprosperous times. The affluent condition of the company during its early career was mainly

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due to its revenues from the prizes of war and from wealthy captured provinces in the West Indies and South America. These revenues were cut off by the conclusion of peace with Spain, and its affairs began to decline, until " finally its liabilities exceeded its assets by more than five millions of florins. Various schemes were proposed and tried to save it from bankruptcy or dissolution, but none availed to ward off disaster. In 1673 it was practically extinct, but it was not until 1671 that it was officially dissolved." Such was the melancholy end of this magnificent organization, which came to pass in the very year that Dutch authority, after a fitful period of renewal, was terminated forever in New York. Early in 1671, by the Treaty of Westminster, peace was restored between England and Holland, each party agreeing to return to the other whatever possessions had been conquered during the war.