REPRESENTATION  OB1  NEW   NETHERLAND.                                 SI9
IN WHAT MANNER  NEW NETHERLAND SHOULD BE REDRESSED.
Although we are well assured and know, in regard to the mode of redress of the country, we are only children, and Their High Mightinesses are entirely competent, we nevertheless pray that they overlook our presumption and pardon us if we make some suggestions according to our humble understanding thereof, in addition to what we have considered necessary in our petition to Their High Mightinesses.
In our opinion this country will never flourish under the government of the Honorable Company, but will pass away and come to an end of itself, unless the Honorable Company be reformed ; and therefore it would be more profitable for them, and better for the country, that they should be rid thereof, and their effects transported hence.
To speak specifically. Care ought to be takeri of the public property, as well ecclesiastical as civil, •Which, in beginnings, can be illy dispensed with. It is doubtful whether Divine Worship will not have to cease altogether in consequence of the departure of the minister, and the inability of the Company. There should be a public school, provided with at least two good masters, so that first of all in so wild a country, where there are many loose people, the youth be well taught and brought up, not only in reading and writing, but also in the knowledge and fear of the Lord. As it is now, the school is kept very irregularly, one and another keeping it according to his pleasure and as long as he thinks proper. There ought also to be an alms house, and an orphan asylum, and other similar institutions. The minister who now goes home,* can give a much fuller explanation thereof. The country must also be provided with godly, honorable and intelligent rulers who are not very indigent, or, indeed, are not too covetous. A covetdus Governor makerpoor subjects. The manner the country is now governed falls severely upon it, and is intol-
• This was the Rev. Johannes Backerus, who had previously been a minister at Curacoa. He succeeded the Rev. Everadus Bogardus as minister at New Amsterdam in 1647, and left for Holland in 1649, just before the departure of this deputation.