A few years afterwards he made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase a tract of land at Catskill, and in 1647, his term of office having expired, he removed to the Manhattans, where, in consideration of the assistance he had afforded in negotiating a treaty with the Mohawk=, and in return for advances he had made to enable the government to purchase presents for those Indians, he obtained a grant of a large tract of land in Westchester, now known as Tonkers. This was erected into a Colonic or Uanor in 1652, of which Van der Donck became the Patroon. The misgovernment of the country had, in the mean time, excited considerable complaint among the people, and a delegation was sent to lay the matter before the States General. In the discussions which arose in consequence. Van der Douck took a prominent part. The Petition of the People of New Netherland {supra, p. 271), of which Van der Donck is generally admitted to have been the author, was printed at the Hague, in tlie year 1650, under the Title of Vertoogh van Nieu-Nederland weghens de GheUgentheydt, Vruchtbaerhydt en Soberen staet dessdfs. sm. 4to. pp. 49, by which means the advantages of this country, and the justice of its complaints were brought prominently before the Nation. As a consequence, emigration was encouraged, the colonists were admitted to participate in the foreign trade, and a municipal government was conceded for the first time to New Amsterdam, now New- York. In the labors attendant on procuring these reforms. Van der Donck could not fail to secure the ill will of the Company, which had taken possession of New Netherland merely for commercial purposes, and had made colonization only a secondary object. Accordingly, in 1652, when his business w.as concluded and he was on the eve of returning to this country, with his family, the Directors at Amsterdam instructed their ship captains not to receive him on board any of their vessels.