Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| the fur-trade were encroaching upon the company’s profits, and moreover he had been drawn into a scheme of ship-building, which though successful,—a very large and fine ship being built and launched in the bay,—nevertheless proved much too expensive for the taste of his employers. Accordingly, he was recalled; and later on, deeming himself to have been ill-treated, he took service under the Swedish queen. |
| His successor was Wouter Van Twiller, who reached New Amsterdam early in 1633. Van Twiller was a good-natured, corpulent, wine-bibbing Dutchman, loose of life, and not overstrict in principle, and with a slow, irresolute mind. However, as he was an easy-going man his rule did not bear hardly on the colonists, while he won for himself an honorable reputation by devoting much of his time to the construction of public buildings. Thus, he made a new fort of earthen banks with stone bastions, enclosing within its walls not only the soldier’s barracks, but also at first the governmental residence and public offices; he also built several windmills and the first church which was used solely as such, as well as houses for the dominie and for the schout-fiscal. The latter was the most important of the local officers; he possessed curious and extensive powers, being the chief executive of the local government, and answering roughly to both the English sheriff and |