142 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

indefatigable. He is sworne as to his fidelity. I have
affixt an annuall sallery on him, which, together with
the advantage of his letters and other small portable
packes, may afford him a handsome livelyhood. Hart-
ford is the first stage I have designed him to change his
horse, where constantly I expect he should have a fresh
one lye. All the letters outward shall be delivered gratis
with a signification of Post Payd on the superscription;
and reciprocally, we expect all to us free. Each first
Monday of the month he sets out from New York, and
is to return within the month from Boston to us againe.
The maile has divers baggs, according to the townes the
letters are designed to, which are all sealed up till their
arrivement, with the seale of the Secretarie's Office,
whose care it is on Saturday night to seale them up.
Only by-letters are in an open bag, to dispense by the
wayes. Thus you see the scheme I have drawne to
promote a happy correspondence. I shall only beg of
you your furtherance to so universall a good work.

By trail, road, and waterway the colonists were
thus drawing nearer to each other and steadily
increasing their facilities for trade, when all was
interrupted by the reassertion of Dutch sover-
eignty and the reconquest of the English colony
by the Dutch under much the same circumstances
as had marked the surrender of Stuy vesant in 1664.
'The old habit of unpreparedness survived under
the English as under the Dutch; and the third war
between England and Holland, begun in 1672 and