Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/70

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THE DIPLOMAT
51

in the adjustment of this trouble where Herrman found a golden opportunity to display his rare powers in the art of diplomacy.

In 1656 Stuyvesant, the board of burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam determined to colonize more completely the west bank of the Delaware River. Permanent settlements were ere long established at Horekill (Lewes), New Amstel (Newcastle) and on the west side of the river at Passaying (Philadelphia).[1] In 1659 Governor Fendall of Maryland began to look upon all these new Dutch settlements so near his borders with anything but a kindly eye. Believing that the time was ripe to prevent further colonization on the part of the Dutch, Governor Fendall sent Colonel Nathaniel Utie to inform the Dutch that they were trespassing upon English territory.[2] When the Director General heard of this, he raged and fumed in his usual manner and with his customary impetuosity asked the Dutch deputies at New Amstel why they had not treated Utie as a spy instead of bargaining with him.[3] Herrman, once again in high favor with Stuyvesant, seeing the seriousness of the situation, proposed a conference between representatives of the two provinces; whereupon he and Resolved Waldron were appointed special ambassadors to Maryland.

“Peter Stuyvesant”, began the Dutch governor in a letter to Governor Fendall, “in behalf of the high and mighty lords States-General of the United Provinces, the noble lords overseers of the authorized West India Company, as the Director General of New Netherland, Curaçao, Bonaire and Araba, and the apurtenants of them, with the advice of the lords in coun-

  1. Neill, E. S. Terra Mariae, 1867, p. 159.
  2. Hazard, Samuel, Annals of Pennsylvania, p. 266.
  3. Ibid. Also Maryland Archives, Vol. III (Proc. of Council), pp. 366–369; 375–378.