In answer and reply to their High Mightinesses' letter and Resolution of the 29"" September, respecting the Boundary between the English and those of this State in New Netherland, they will be hereby respectfully informed, that among the documents relating to this matter we have found no other Instruction than the Memoir numbered 1,^ touching the Limits and Jurisdiction claimed there; a Description of the Limits there. No. 2,' and two Extracts, of letters writtenby Director Stuyvesandt, the first of the 29"' November, 16-50,* and the other

' The source from which the above dispatch is derived, is not stated. It is printed in the Verbael van Bevemingk, p. 611.

Messrs. Bevemingk, Nieuport and Jongstal were Ambassadors to England at this date. 'John de Witt, one of the greatest statesmen that Holland ever produced, was born on the 25th September, 1625, in the city of Dort, Having received the degree of Doctor of Laws, he traveled some years, and on returning home was appointed Pensionary of Dort; next elected in 1653 Grand Pensionary of Holland, Inteudant of the Fiefs and Keeper of the Great Seal. The war with England was very trying to his Administration, and he put forth all his powers to restore the National fleet. The partizans of William HI., Prince of Orange, demanded his appointment as Stadholder which De Witt opposed, believing it fatal to the liberties of the country. An act followed excluding his Royal Highness forever from that office. This exclusion and the misfortunes that overtook Holland in 1672, caused the ruin of this pure and able Magistrate. He was arrested, accused of being in league with the enemy, stripped of all his offices and sentenced to perpetual banishment. On the 20th of August, 1672, and in the 47th year of his age, he was seized, with his brother Cornells, on leaving the prison to obey this sentence, and massacred by the populace of the Hague, after which the bodies of both were most grossly insulted.