trade reasons, seemed to get along very well with the Dutch during this period; however, the Dutch did not get on so well with the settlers in New England. Up until 1660, at least, the most friendly relations seem to have been maintained between the southern planters and the Dutch burgers of New Amsterdam; for, as we have observed, the two nationalities were bound together by trade and economic ties. This amicable feeling was much strengthened by the Navigation Act of 1651 which tended to draw the Dutch traders and the southern planters closer together than before; and as long as Cromwell ruled in England, the Marylanders and the Virginians looked toward the Dutch to the north as their natural allies. New Amsterdam was at this time the largest town on the Atlantic coast and perhaps many visitors came there, as they still continue to do, if for no other reason than curiosity.
After Herrman took up his residence in Maryland at Bohemia Manor, he did not wholly withdraw from New York life. For a number of years he kept at least one house there. The last time his name appears in the annals of New York is in 1673, “House of Augustyn Heermans under the fort and bulwarks of the City of New Orange to be torn down.”[1]
The last link between Herrman and New Amsterdam was now severed. The romantic Bohemian left his quarrelsome Dutch friends forever, and the last remaining possession of his once extensive New Netherland domain passed from his hands. Maryland henceforth was to be his home, where he was acquiring vast tracts of land in that colony.
As a great merchant and landowner engaged in business with a people inclined toward incessant argument and court
- ↑ Records of New Amsterdam, Vol. VII. p. 131. For an interesting account of the construction of Herrman’s warehouse and his other New Amsterdam property see J. H. Innes, New Amsterdam and its people, 1902, pp. 33, 35, 54.
