[E.B. O'Callaghan (ed.) (1856)] HOLLAND DOCUMENTS : IIL 251 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.