388 NEW- YORK COLONIAL MANUSCRIPTS. lieretofore for the government thereof, the increase and establishment of the population, raising and bearing of necessary taxes, the prevention of dangers and general ruin similar to what has been bitterly experienced for a few yearsand further, for the effectual removal of all sorts ;

of evils and troubles, which have been elaborately submitted to your High Mightinesses: And in order that the complaints of the Nation's subjects, now heard and examined for the space of five months, may be deferred no longer by conferences and objections, but remedied by good resolutions. We would, therefore, be of opinion that your High Mightinesses do, with the advice and communication of the Directors now summoned from all the Chambers of the West India Company, the major part of whom are in attendance, permit the Delegates from New Netherland to return this season, to encourage and animate all the innaoitants there sedulously and to the improvement, security and increase of the to attend to the cultivation of the soil population within their limits. And, accordingly, that the offer respecting the conveyance of passengers and farmers which they made, ought to be speedily accepted and executed; and, further, that this Provisional Order be enacted and also furnished them.

1.

First. Whereas their High Mightinesses have received the strange and unexpected in elligence that contributions have been demanded from the Aborigines of the country and, such having been refused, that the late Director Kieft, under pretense that the people so demanded by petition, signed, however, by merely three persons, had waged against those Aborigines an unnecessary, bloody and ruinous war, the instigators whereof have not been duly inquired after, or punished, the Director and Council shall in future be careful that [no war] be undertaken against the Aborigines of the country or neighbors of New Netherland, without their High Mightinesses' knowledge.