[E.B. O'Callaghan (ed.) (1856)] The affairs of New Netherland assumed in the beginning a favorable appearance of good progress and especial advantage from individuals and particularly from the State; but the hope which everyone there entertained of the proximate establishment of some improvement in that quarter, hath been well nigh destroyed, the work being almost smothered in the birth by misgovernment on the part of the officers there as well in oppressing private citizens, as by waging unlawful and unnecessary war on their own authority. What damage New Netherland hath suffered in consequence of the aforesaid unlawful and unnecessary War, which brought it to the brink of ruin — and how much innocent blood, as well of heathens as of christians and even of sucklings, hath been unnecessarily and barbarously shed, your noble Mightinesses will be able to ascertain from the annexed Points and Articles,' which I present to you, not from any particular object I might have against Cornelis van Tienhoven, but that your noble Mightinesses may have a foundation for the inquiry as to what constituted the cause of the country's ruin. The few inhabitants that may still be in New Netherland have all along hoped that their High Mightinesses would have passed some ' This document is without name or date; 'tis almost certainly by Adriaen van der Donok. — J. A. dk Z. ' For these points and articles, see post, p. 409. — Ed.