[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] statesmen had the details of the much-cherished West Indian Com-pany enterprise thoroughly matured, and on the 3d of June of that year the charter of the new corporation, comprising a preamble and forty-five articles, was duly signed. The subscriptions to its stock, which was required by law to be not less than seven millions of florins (12,800,000), were immediately forthcoming. But although the ex-istence of the company dated from July 1, 1621, it was some two years before its charter took complete effect, various disputed points not be-ing immediately adjustable. Twelve additional articles were subse-quently incorporated, the whole instrument receiving final approval on the 21st of June, 1623. The Dutch West India Company, to whose care the conversion of the American wilderness into a habitation for civilized man was thus com-mitted, and under whose auspices European institutions were first planted and organized government was erected and for many years administered here, was in its basic constitution a most notable body, partaking of the character of a civil congress so far as that is practi-cable for an association pursuing essential mercantile ends. It had a central directorate or executive board, officially styled the assembly of the XIX., which was composed of nineteen delegates, eighteen be-ing elected from five local chambers, and the nineteenth being the 1 Van Pelfs Hist, of the Greater New York. i. 0.