impression I had previously entertained, that though a great and valuable amount of information, on points either entirely novel, or at best but imperfectly known in our history, was there contained, the records of the Dutch West India Company, which had the supervision and direction of the Colony of New Netherland, were the grand magazine in which I might hope to find those more particular details of voyages, discoveries, emigrations, settlements and personal narratives, which would be of the highest interest to the descendants of the early settlers, as well as to the historian of New-York. Relying on the information which had been given me at the Hague, that these records, commencing with the period of the organization of the company in 1621, were preserved complete at Amsterdam, an order was accordingly obtained from the Minister of the Colonies, directing the keeper of the old East and West India Companies' papers, at Amsterdam, to afford me every facility for examining the documents in his custody. The archives of the city of Amsterdam were also presumed to contain important information relative to the Colony of " Nieuw-Amstel," which that city undertook to manage in the year 1656 ; and a letter in my behalf was in consequence addressed by the Minister of the Interior to the Burgomaster. In further prosecution of my duty, I accordingly visited Amsterdam. " ' But, on applying at the West India House, I was, to my infinite surprise and mortification, informed by Mr. de Munnick, the keeper, that all the books, documents and papers of every kind, belonging to the old East and West India Companies, of a date prior to 1700, had been sold at public auction in the year 1821, by order of the government of the Netherlands. That nothing should be left undone, however, I instituted a thorough search among the remaining papers, in the hope that something, however small, might have escaped the operaxxvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION. tion of the order.