among the soldiers as a prize, and so it has continued ; but it has produced great strife and discontent; for from that time forward the Director endeavored to The Director begins divide the country and to establish a faction those who were on his side could ;

try, and^s very j'eat- not do amiss, howevcr badly they behaved; those who were opposed to him areiisited. were always wrong, however well they acted, and the order to consider half an error as a whole one, was then strictly enforced. So great was the Director's

HOLLAND DOCUMENTS : IV. 301

jealousy that he could not without suspicion suffer disinterested persons to visit his partizans. war wm not After the war had been terminated accordins' to the Director's own statement, The •-^ oe concludt'u uniii ""^ '" though in our opinion it will never be finished until the country be peopled, every [^^'j^.X^y!" one hoped that this excise would cease but Director Kieft postponed that until ;

the arrival of (31) a new Director, who was very anxiously wished for, and finally appeared; but like the crowning of Rehoboam ; for, instead of abolishing the beer excise, his first act was to superadd thereto a wine excise and other ,^^'j^5^7JJ^'„i;''^^: intolerable burdens ; so that some of the Commonalty, as they then had no <='»«•

advocate, were themselves under the necessity of remonstrating, but instead of J^'^^.f'^^P,''^ p"^""™ the relief they expected, they received a somewhat sharp reprimand from the Director, and subsequently obtained a written answer which, as was his custom, he had couched in so lengthy and so diffuse a style, that poor humble people, such as are here, must inevitably commit mistakes regarding it. And thus have further attempts been made from time to time to impose new taxes and burthens.