60 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

was more than justifiable. To have neglected the
defenses would have been culpable; and the bar-
racks built for the hundred and four soldiers whom
he had brought over from the Fatherland may also
be set down as necessary. But when the Company
was groaning under the expenses of the colony, it
was, to say the least, lacking in tact to build for
himself the most elaborate house in New Nether-
land, besides erecting on one of the Company's
louweries a house, a barn, a boathouse, and a
brewery, to say nothing of planting another farm
with tobacco, working it with slave labor at the
Company's expense, and appropriating the profits.
In the year 1638, after he had been five years in
office, the outcry against Van Twiller for mis-
feasance, malfeasance, and especially nonfeasance*
grew too loud to be ignored, and he was recalled;
but before he left New Netherland he bought
Nooten or Nut Island, since called Governor's
Island, and also two other islands in the East
River. At the time of his marriage in 1643, Van
Twiller was in command of a competence attained
at the expense of the West India Company, and
there is much excuse for the feeling of his employers
that he had been more active in his own affairs
than in theirs.