[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] It should not be supposed that the settlement on Manhattan Island at this early period enjoyed any pretensions as a community. Indeed, it had scarcely vet risen to true communal dignity. According to Wassanaer, the white population in 1628 was 270. But this number did not represent any particularly solid organization of people com-posed of energetic and effective elements. The settlers up to this time were almost exclusively refugees from religious persecution, who came for the emergent reason that they were without homes in Europe— mostly honest, sturdy people, but poor and unresourceful. The inducements so far offered by the AVest India Company were not sufficiently attractive to draw other classes to their transatlantic lands, and the natural colonists of the New Netherland, the yeomen and burghers of the United Provinces, finding no appearance of ad-vantage to offset the plain risks involved in emigration, were very reluctant to leave their native country, where conditions of life were comfortable and profitable much beyond the average degree. Ihis reluctance was alluded to in the following strong language ^ a re-port made to the States-General by the Assembly of the XIX. m lb-J: " The colonizing such wild and uncultivated countries demands more inhabitants than we can well supply; not so much through lack of population, in which our provinces abound, as from the fact that all 76 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY