the action of the Nine Men. But the unconquered old veteran did not give public vent to his rage as formerly one would have surmised. Nowhere is there a better instance in Stuyvesant’s career in respect to his ability and latent powers of diplomacy. In handling the situation he employed a subtlety and craft that seems unusual in one of his ordinarily explosive temperament. His provincial secretary was Cornelius Van Tienhoven, “a Cautious, subtle, intelligent, sharp witted” man who was familiar with the character of his enemies and their facts. He had long been a sort of favorite of Stuyvesant and therefore experienced little difficulty in persuading his master to appoint him as a special ambassador to Holland and to be allowed to take along with him certain exculpatory documents among which was one of an unusually laudatory nature from the magistrates of the English settlement at Gravesend who declared their confidence in Stuyvesant’s “wisdom and justice in the administration of the commonwealth.”[1]
While Van der Donck and his party were waiting to embark for Holland, Van Tienhoven secretly left for that country fourteen days before the official delegation carrying the Memorial and the Remonstrance. Nevertheless, fate worked in favor of the Van der Donck party; for Van Tienhoven, delayed on the water for several days on account of storms and bad weather, actually reached Amsterdam a few days after the Remonstrance had been presented at The Hague. Nevertheless, Van Tienhoven found that he had scored a certain amount of success over his enemies. Formality required that colonial delegations first present memorials and petitions to the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam to be forwarded to the States-General at The Hague. Van der Donck, either not familiar with the formal etiquette, or knowing of it and
- ↑ Brodhead, Vol. I. p. 509.
