After she had thus acted the Universal mother returned up to Heaven, where she enjoys perfect bliss with the Sovereign Lord, whom they know not nor ever saw ; wherefore they will be held less responsible than the Christians ; pretending to acknowledge him a punisher of all wicked deeds which they commit notwithstanding, and it is with more difficulty that they can be. brought from these adopted vices to christianity. _ Regarding the souls of the Dead, they believe: Belief regarding haga: that those who have done good enjoy every sort of pleasure in a temperate country to the South,

DESCRIPTION OF NEW NETHERLAND. . 131

where the bad wander about in misery. They believe the loud howlings which wild animals make at night, to be the wailings of the ghosts of wicked bodies.'

The fertility and situation of New Netherland induced the rea. Burgomasters of Amsterdam to send a colony Noonization of thither. Wherefore they agreed with the West

India Company with the approbation of the States General at the Hague. In the year sixteen hundred and fifty six, they shipped accordingly over to Wew Netherland seventy families, to which they added three hundred Waldenses who had been driven out of Piedmont. These embarked on the fifteenth of December by beat ofdrum.? Colonization prospered. Meanwhile, when the war between the English crown and the United Netherlands broke out, the Dutch found themselves, after ten years possession, so powerless against the English that they surrendered to this nation. Jew Amsterdam obtained consequently the name of Wew York. The conquered inhabitants experienced great inconvenience inasmuch as Trade was suddenly brought to a stand.