England there were John Eliot, Increase Mather and Cotton Mather. Yet all of these men were largely products of a local civilization and rarely did they take much interest in the affairs of the other colonies.
But in the case of Augustine Herrman it was different. First a merchant of the only Dutch colony in what is now the United States, he learned to know these folk and lived as one of them, haggling, quarrelling and suing each other. As a diplomat he came in contact with the New Englanders on the one hand, and on the other with the southern planters. Later, as a great landed proprietor he learned to know more about the English colonists, living as successfully among them as he did formerly with the Dutch burgers. His estate was situated close to the center of Atlantic America; doubtless through his domains passed many of the celebrated visitors who came over from the Old World to take a look at the New. Herrman was neither New Netherlander nor Marylander; he was, in the best sense of the word, an American.
