Narrative of New Netherland | Page 4

of
the East India Company. The same rule was applied in the case of the
West India Company's settlements. Under this rule the first minister
sent out to New Netherland was placed under the jurisdiction of the
Classis of Amsterdam, since the colony was under the charge of the
Amsterdam Chamber. Many extracts from the minutes of that classis,
and what remains of its correspondence with the ministers in New
Netherland, are printed in the volumes published by the State of New
York under the title _Ecclesiastical Records, State of New York_ (six
volumes, Albany, 1901-1905). From 1639, if not earlier, a committee
of the classis, called "Deputati ad Res Exteras," was given charge of
most of the details of correspondence with the Dutch Reformed
churches in America, Africa, the East and foreign European countries.
As mentioned by Wassenaer, "comforters of the sick," who were
Ecclesiastical officers but not ministers, were first sent Out to New
Netherland. The first minister was Reverence Jonas Jansen Michielse,
or, to employ the Latinized form of his name which he, according to
clerical habit, was accustomed to use, Jonas Johannis Michaelius.
Michaelius was born in North Holland in 1577, entered the University
of Leyden as a student of divinity in 1600, became minister at
Nieuwbokswoude in 1612 and at Hem, near Enkhuizen, in 1614. At
some time between April, 1624, and August, 1625, he went out to San
Salvador (Bahia, Brazil), recently conquered by the West India
Company's fleet, and after brief service there to one Of their posts on

the West African coast. Returning thence, He was, early in 1628, sent
out to Manhattan, where he arrived April 7. It is not known just when
he returned to Holland, but he appears to have been under engagement
for three years. In 1637-1638 we find the classis vainly endeavoring to
send him again to New Netherland, but prevented by the Company,
which had a veto upon all such appointments in its dominions.
About half a century ago the following precious letter of Michaelius,
describing New Netherland as it appeared in its earliest days to the eyes
of an educated clergyman of the Dutch Church, was discovered in
Amsterdam, and printed by Mr. J.J.Bodel Nijenhuis in the
_Kerk-historisch Archief_, part I. An English translation of it, with an
introduction, was then privately printed in a pamphlet by Mr. Henry C.
Murphy, an excellent scholar in New Netherland history, who was at
that time minister of the United States to the Netherlands. This
pamphlet, entitled The First Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in
the United States (The Hague, 1858), was reprinted in 1858 in
Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, II.
757-770, in 1881 in the Collections of the New York Historical Society,
XIII, and in 1883, at Amsterdam, by Frederik Muller and Co., who
added a photographic fac-simile of full size and a transcript of the
Dutch text. In 1896 a reduced fac-simile of the original letter, with an
amended translation by Reverence John G. Fagg, appeared in the Year
Book of the (Collegiate) Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of New
York City, and also separately for private circulation, and in 1901 the
Dutch text with Reverend Mr. Fagg's translation was printed in
Ecclesiastical Records, I. 49-68, which also contains a photographic
fac-simile of the concluding portion of the manuscript. Another is in
Memorial History, I. 166. The original is in the New York Public
Library (Lenox Building). Reverend Adrianus Smoutius, to whom the
letter was addressed, was an ultra-Calvinist clergyman, who led a
stormy life, but from 1620 to 1630 was a minister of the collegiate
churches of Amsterdam, and as such a member of the classis under
whose charge Michaelius served.
For many years this letter of August 11, 1628, was supposed to be the
earliest extant letter or paper written at Manhattan. But a letter of three
days earlier was recently discovered, which Michaelius wrote on
August 8 to Jan Foreest, a magistrate of Hoorn and secretary to the

Executive Council (Gecommitteerde Raden) of the States of the
Province of Holland. This letter mentions epistles also sent to two
clergymen in Holland and to the writer's brother. It was printed by Mr.
Dingman Versteeg in _Manhattan in 1628_ (New York, 1904). All
these letters were presumably prepared to be sent home on the same
ship. The two which are extant parallel each other to a large extent.
That which follows, though second in order of time, is intrinsically a
little more interesting than the other. Mr. Fagg's translation has in the
main been followed.

LETTER OF REVEREND JONAS MICHAELIUS, 1628
The Reverend, Learned and Pious Mr. Adrianus Smoutius, Faithful
Minister of the Holy Gospel of Christ in his Church, dwelling upon the
Heerengracht, not far from the