One other illustration of Stuyvesant's policy in local government is to be found in his negotiations with a party of Milford Englishmen, who proposed leaving their homes rather than agree to the union of Connecticut and New Haven. The intending settlers asked permission to control their own civil affairs, elect their magistrates, and make such laws as seemed to them suitable. Stuyvesant at first replied that they might have privileges equal to those of the Dutch towns; the double nomination of magistrates, and the passage of laws by the magistrates with the consent of the Director
and Council; but he refused the power to choose their own inhabitants. The answer was not satisfactory to the New Englanders, for it did not state the manner of election of the magistrates, did not grant legislative powers to the town-meeting, and refused the privilege of admitting their own inhabitants. But the West India Company was at this time favoring the immigration of English dissenters, and accordingly, in May, 1662, Stuyvesant modified his
former proposition, and granted practically all the demands of the
English.[1]
Stuyvesant's whole policy appears essentially different from that of Kieft. The latter encouraged English immigration and allowed the settlers to choose their own form of local self-government, although at the same time he was governing all the Dutch settlements on the Delaware, on the Hudson, and on Long Island arbitrarily, and without a hint of any popular control in local affairs. Stuyvesant, on the other hand, incorporated many of the Dutch villages, but according to the Dutch, and not the English model. A close corporation was established in each of the Dutch towns, which reproduced in miniature the aristocratic organization of the Netherland towns of that day. There was naturally an inconsistency in allowing the English strangers greater liberty than the native Dutch citizens, and this may account in part for Stuyvesant's opposi-
- ↑ Stuyvesant's second letter is a curious document: "The Governour and Counsel doe give Consent that the aforesaid English Nation beinge setlet under this government shal have power by the most vote of the Churches members, to nominate their owne Magistrates, in such a quantity as they shall thinck most meete and needfull for their towne or Townes, which Magistrates with the freemen shal be Impoured, to make such Lawes and Ordinances, as occasion shal require, which lawes and ordinances after Examination beinge found not oppugnant to the general Lawes of the Vnited Belgick and this Province shal by the Governour and Counsel be Ratified and Confirmed vnto them, only the Governour and Counsel doe Reserve the Appeale of Criminel and Civil Sentences above the Sum of fifty pound Sterlinge, without Reformation or appeale to that Sum, for all such Inhabitans as therevnto shal Subschrybe and the Confirmation of the Magistrates out of dubbel Number jearly to be presented vnto them, out of which dubbel Number with advyce or Communication of the old Magistrates or their deputies the followinge Magistrates by the Governour and Counsel then beinge shal be Confirmed." Col. Doc., XIII. 222. The projected removal did not take place until after the English occupation.
