Otherwise, and if no better order be introduced among the alternating ships than has prevailed hitherto, private traders ought be allowed to prosecute the trade in their vessels, on a regulated plan, as proposed by the principal stockholders of Amsterdam and Zealand ; if, indeed, it is desirable that any merchant continue longer to trade to Brazil, when it is notorious, that the Company is not in a condition to supply of itself all the Brazilian necessaries for the support of so many thousand people in addition to those going to keep plantations (Ingenhos).

246 NEW- YORK COLONIAL MANUSCRIPTS. Should this throwing open the trade to private vessels be distasteful to some Chambers, in the supposition that the free course of trade which tends more to one place than to another, would prove prejudicial to Chambers and cities and diminish their freights, it is their submitted wliether, in such case, those Chambers would not be satisfied by allowing them to send more vessels to other districts, so that each member may enjoy its proper management, and the provinces the benefit of the trade which was allowed them respectively on the establishment of the Company. Respecting New Netherland That country is considered to be the most fruitful of all within :

your High Mightinesses' jurisdiction, and the best adapted to raise all sorts of this country produce, such as rye, wheat, barley, peas, beans, etc., and cattle; and that in more abundance than can be done here, were it suitably peopled and cultivated. The granting of Freedoms and Privileges, hath indeed induced some Patroons and Colonists to undertake agriculture there but as the produce cannot be sold any where except in the adjacent places ;