New Nether- advautagcs of said place, the favorable nature of the air, and soil, and that considerable Trade and goods and many commodities may be obtained from thence, sent some persons, of their own accord, thither with all sorts of cattle and implements necessary for agriculture, so that in the year 1628 there akeady resided on the Island of the Manhattes, two hundred and seventy souls, men, women & cliildi-en, under Governor Minuit, Verhulst's successor, living there in peace with the Natives. But as the land, in many places being full of weeds and wild productions, could not be properly cultivated in consequence of the scantiness of the population, the said Lords Dii-ectors of the West India Company, the better to people their lands, & to bring the country to produce more abundantl}^, resolved to grant divers Privileges, Freedoms and Exemptions to all Patroons, Masters or Individuals who should plant any Colonies and cattle in New Netherland, and they accordingly have constituted and pubhshed in print these following Exemptions, to afford better encoui-agement and infuse greater zeal into whomsoever should be inchned to reside and plant his Colonic in New Netherland.

[Here follows the "Charter of Patroons," already printed in various works on the History of New-York.]

1 Connecticut River.

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW-YORK BY THE DUTCH. 49

EARLY DUTCH SETTLEMENT ON THE DELAWARE.

[Deed Book, VII.J '

N.Yorlf, february 14: 1684-5.

The Deposicon of Catelina Trico aged fouer score yeares or thereabouts taken before the right hono''''^. Coll". Thomas Dongan Leu', and Governour under his Royii. high^s, James Duke of Yorke and Albany etc. of N York and its Dependencyes in America who saith and Declares in the p^sens of God as folio we th