Truly it was wonderful how soon we made of that wilderness a country that kings might covet, which indeed they did, as I came to know before I was at an end of my service with the West India Company.
If I give so much time to telling you of what we did in New Amsterdam when Master Minuit was at the head of the government, you will not be inclined to listen when I speak of what the other governors, sent by the West India Company, accomplished for the good or ill of the country.
THE BIG SHIP
Therefore it is, that instead of pleasing myself by telling of all my master did, I will come directly to that time when he left us. According to my belief, the West India Company could not have found in all the world any other man who would have served so faithfully, both the people and the Company, as did Master Minuit.
The last thing of moment which Director Minuit did, was to have built, so that the merchants of Holland might see what we of New Netherland could do, one of the finest ships, so I have heard it said, that was ever put together. She was called the New Netherland. She measured eight hundred tons, and carried thirty guns.
At the time she was launched, I said to myself that never in this world would be found men who could build a larger or more beautiful ship than this, and yet I made a mistake in saying so, as I have made many others during my life.
I would I might tell you of the merrymaking and the feasting when the _New Netherland_ was sent from the land into the water. I wish it might be possible to describe the astonishment of the savages as they saw this huge vessel being built up timber by timber, until she was fit to encounter the tempests, and the waves, and the manifold dangers of the sea.