52 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

Neither of these officials left any permanent
impress on the history of the colony. It was
therefore a day of vast importance to the dwellers
on the North River, and especially to the little
group of settlers on Manhattan Island, when the
Meeuwken dropped her anchor in the harbor in
May, 1626, and her small boat landed Peter Minuit,
Director-General of New Netherland, a Governor
who had come to govern. Minuit, though regis-
tered as "of Wesel," Germany, was of Huguenot
ancestry, and is reported to have spoken French,
Dutch, German, and English. He proved a tact-
ful and efficient ruler, and the new system of
government took form under the Director and
Council, the koopman, who was commercial agent
and secretary, and a schout who performed the
duties of sheriff and public prosecutor.

Van Wassenaer, the son of a domine in Amster-
dam, gives us a report of the colony as it existed
under Minuit. He writes of a counting-house built
of stone and thatched with reeds, of thirty ordinary
houses on the east side of the river, and a horse-mill
yet unfinished over which is to be constructed a
spacious room to serve as a temporary church and
to be decorated with bells captured at the sack of
San Juan de Porto Rico in 1625 by the Dutch fleet.