Petitioners have given offence by any improper papers, tending to injure New Netheriand or tiie pulilic vpeal (wiiich they in no way desired), they submit themselves here to such punishment as We shall find appropriate; but it will appear, on the contrary, that the Petitioners had no other aim in their writings than the promotion of the public good and the wished for peace in New Netheriand, and the removal of the inhuman cruelties, tyranny and misgovernment which the servants of the West India Company, and especially Director Kieft, inflicted from time to time on the Natives of New Netheriand; the consequence whereof is,

that by these barbarous proceedings, the country is wholly prostrate, the settlers hunted, their lands laid waste, the bouweries and plantations, to the number of 50 or 60 burnt and laid in ashes, and what is worst of all, the Dutch name is through those cruel acts, despised to a most sovereign degree, by the Heathens of those parts: And whenever the poor inhabitants complained to the supreme government of these harsh doings, they were so persecuted by the Directors there, that the Dutch, in course of time, abandoned the country, and little more than one hundred men, besides private traders, are found there at this day. It is therefore much to

be apprehended, that the English will endeavor in time, to become masters of it, for they, of late years, have come near unto the Dutch, and within fifteen years have increased in New England to fifty or sixty thousand souls, who have now already got a smack of the productiveness and of the convenient navigable rivers of Our New Netheriand. The Petitioners, then, earnestly imploring that this, their humble petition, may by Us be taken into consideration, and they be granted their reasonable and fair request, which, also, the Assembly of the Nineteen itself promisedin their charter of 1630, to all Patroons and free inhabitants: seeing which, We, therefore, request and command you, who are hereby deputed hereunto, to summon, in Our name, at the request of the aforesaid Petitioners, the above named Director Stuyvesant, and those of the government in New Netheriand aforesaid, with all others required, to come and appear, or send attorneys, on a suitable day, to sustain and defend the aforesaid sentences and the tenor thereof before Us, here at the Hague, or to renounce the same if they think proper to see and hear the same adjudged null, void, and of no effect, and accordingly, legally to amend and correct them according to law, if such be right, on such application as the Petitioners, on the day appointed, shall present, in order, parties being heard, the Petitioners may by Us, be provided with such remedy of justice, and also of grace if necessary, as shall be found pertinent and applicable to the case.