Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam

by John S. C. Abbott

Captain Manning returned an answer simply acknowledging the receipt of the message, and informing the Dutch Admirals that he had already dispatched officers to communicate with him. He promised upon the return of those messengers to give a definite reply to his summons.

The Dutch Admirals, Benckes and Evertson, were not disposed to waste any time in parleying. They probably remembered the circumstances under which the province of New Netherland had been wrested from them by its present possessors, and they rejoiced that the hour of retribution had thus unexpectedly come.

They therefore sent back word that their batteries were loaded and shotted and ready to open fire; that one half hour and one half hour only, would be granted for deliberation; that immediately upon the arrival of the boat at the fort the half hour glass would be turned up; and that if, when its last sands fell, the white flag of surrender were not raised upon the fort, the bombardment would be commenced.

The last sands fell and no white flag appeared. Instantly the thunder of a cannon echoed over the bay, and a storm of iron hail came crashing upon the frail fort, killing and wounding a number of men. Volley after volley succeeded without any intermission. Captain Manning made no attempt to return the fire. He and his powerless garrison hurried to places of safety, leaving the ramparts to be ploughed up and the barracks to be battered down without any resistance.

While this cannonade was going on, the Dutch Admirals manned their boats with a land force of six hundred men, and they were disembarked upon the shore of the island without encountering any foe. The little band of English soldiers was powerless, and the Dutch inhabitants were much more disposed to welcome their countrymen as deliverers than to oppose them as enemies. These Dutch troops were armed with hand grenades and such other weapons as were deemed necessary to take the place by storm. Rapidly they marched through the fields to the Common, now called the Park. It was, as we have mentioned, nearly a mile north from the fort.

Here they formed in column to march upon the town, under their leader, Captain Colve. The English commander, Captain Manning, sent three of his subordinate officers, without any definite message, to Captain Colve, to talk over the question of a capitulation. It would seem that Captain Manning was quite incompetent for the post he occupied. He was bewildered and knew not what to do. As his envoys had no proposals to make, two of them were detained and held under the Dutch standard, while the third, Captain Carr, was sent back to inform the English commander that if in one quarter of an hour the place were not surrendered, it would be taken by storm. In the meantime the troops were put upon the march.

Captain Carr, aware of the indecision of Captain Manning and of the personal peril he, as an Englishman, would encounter, with six hundred Dutch soldiers sweeping the streets, burning with the desire to avenge past wrongs, did not venture back into the town with his report, but fled into the interior of the island. The troops pressed on to the head of Broadway, where a trumpeter was sent forward to receive the answer to the summons which it was supposed had been made. He speedily returned, saying that the commander of the fort had, as yet, obtained no answer from the commissioners he had sent to receive from the Dutch commander his propositions.

Captain Colve supposed that he was trifled with. Indignantly he exclaimed "They are not to play the fool with us in this way, forward march." With the beat of drums and trumpet peals and waving banners his solid columns marched down the Broadway road to the little cluster of about three hundred houses, at the extreme southern point of the island. An army of six hundred men at that time and place presented a very imposing and terrible military array. In front of his troops the two commissioners who had been detained, were marched under guard.

As they approached the fort, Captain Manning sent another flag of truce to the Dutch commander, with the statement that he was ready to surrender the fort with all its arms and ammunition, if the officers and soldiers were permitted to march out with their private property and to the music of their band. These terms were acceded to. The English troops, with no triumphal strains, vacated the fort. The Dutch banners soon waved from the ramparts, cheered by the acclaim of the conquerors.

Captain Manning was, in his turn, as severely censured by the people of the English colonies in America, and by the home government, as Governor Stuyvesant had been on the day of his misfortune. English pride was grievously mortified, that the commandant of an English fort should allow himself to be fired upon for hours without returning a shot.