THE DIRECTORS 55

an episode fraught with serious consequences. A
friendly Indian of the Weckquaesgeeck tribe came
with his nephew to traffic at Fort Amsterdam.
Three servants of Minuit fell upon the Indian,
robbed him, and murdered him. The nephew,
then but a boy, escaped to his tribe and vowed
a vengeance which he wreaked in blood nearly a
score of years later.

Minuit's preparations for war were not confined
to land fortification. In 1627 the hearts of the
colonists were gladdened by a great victory of
the Dutch over the Spanish, when, in a battle off
San Salvador, Peter Heyn demolished twenty-six
Spanish warships. On the 5th of September the
same bold sailor captured the whole of the Spanish
silver-fleet with spoils amounting to twelve million
guilders. In the following year the gallant com-
mander, then a lieutenant-admiral, died in battle
on the deck of his ship. The States-General sent
to his old peasant mother a message of condolence,
to which she replied: "Ay, I thought that would
be the end of him. He was always a vagabond;
but I did my best to correct him. He got no more
than he deserved."

It was perhaps the echo of naval victories like
these which prompted Minuit to embark upon a