On this island of Manhate and in its environs there may well be four or five hundred men of different sects and nations; the Director General told me that there were persons there of eighteen different languages ; they are scattered here and there on the river, above and below as the beauty and convenience of the spot invited each to settle, some mechanics however who ply their trades are ranged under the fort; all the others were

22 A DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND.

exposed to the incursions of the natives, who in the year 1643, while I was there actually killed some two score Hollanders and burnt many houses and barns full of wheat.

The river, which is very straight and runs due north and south, is at least a: league broad before the fort. Ships lie at anchor in a bay which forms the other side of the island and can be defended from the fort.

Shortly before I arrived there three large vessels of'300 'tons each had come to load wheat ; two had found cargoes, the third could not be loaded because the savages had burnt ja part of their grain. These ships came from the West Indies where the West India Company usually keeps up seventeen ships of war.

Wo religion is publicly exercised but the Calvinist, and orders 'are to. admit none but Calvinists, but this is 'not observed, for there are, besides Calvinists, in the Colony Catholies, English Puritans, Lutherans, Anabaptists, here called Maistes &e.