[E.B. O'Callaghan (ed.) (1856)] '" The Indians are of little consequence; were there one thousand or two thousand men more than there are now, the natives would be obliged to forego and suppress all their arrogance and designs. " Who may come from out side, or from one side, as Pirates, Englishmen, Swedes, or such like. " With previous advice and order of your High Mightinesses, Excipiunt tamen suhitce necessarice et improvises differenticB. " Not as orders and rules, but simply as our opinions. "If your High Mightinesses please to believe us, we say, and it is a moral certainty — if we now depart without the business being accomplished, there will not be another opportunity or season to remedy New Netherland, for the Enghsh will annex it. 270 NEW-YORK COLONIAL MANUSCRIPTS. and to interpret most favorably this our presumption. We pray and hope that the name of New Netherland ' and the conversion of the Heathen, which ought to be hastened,^ will move your High Mightinesses hereunto. Awaiting, therefore, a happy deliverance, we commend your High Mightinesses' persons and deliberations to the protection of the Almighty, and remain your High Mightinesses' humble and obedient servants. Written in the name and on the behalf of the Commonalty of New Netherland, the 26 July, of this year of our Lord Jesus Christ, XVI"= and forty-nine, in New Amsterdam, on the Island Manhattans, in New Netherland. (Signed) Adriaen van der Donck. AuGUSTiN Herman. Arnoldus van Hardenberg. Jacob van Kouwenhoven. Oloff Stevens.