William Elliot Griffis

“ With a craft quite equaling what we have so often seen in our free’ land, the “machine,” consisting of “John Company” and Peter, had so “fixed” it that the Director not only appointed the city officers, but even made ordinances on his own account. Stuyvesant never lacked vigor and conscientious industry, and from 1653 dates an era of progress and prosperity on Manhattan and in New Netherland at large.
Yet the credit of good results in no sense belongs to Stuyvesant, but rather to van der Donck. ”

“ Now, in a new world, the people did not propose to revert to mediaeval ways at the bock and nod of a man with a feudal baron’s mind.
Among those of the Nine Men who steadfastly resisted Stuyvesant was Adrian van der Donck, who might almost be called the father of the real city, as compared with the earlier hamlet, of New Amsterdam. A graduate of the University of Leyden, he hated to see law trampled under foot either by a corporation or by its creature. ”

“ When men of all the various creeds and nationalities who breathed the air of freedom in the Dutch Republic were assured of similar privilege in New Netherland, many crossed the Atlantic. Between 1653 and 1664, the population increased to about twelve thousand, of whom three thousand were on Manhattan. If any one should be honored with a statue by the citizens of New York, it is van der Donck. ”

“ Van der Donck, with facile pen and pleasing voice, succeeded with the States-General so far as to get municipal government for New Amsterdam, and an order to the Director to inaugurate it. Nevertheless, corporationism was then as strong in the Dutch as it is now in the American Republic. Men high in the Government at the Hague used vested rights in defiance of popular wishes and welfare. ”

“ One of the brave man’s legs bad been lost in West Indian warfare, and had been replaced, through the combined services of the carpenter and silversmith, by a triumph of art and skill. Tradition, with varied tongue, tells of silver nails, studs, bands, or, and most probably, bullion lace as ornamenting his timber supplement. ”