This was an unheard-of measure; Stuyvesant was indignant; he had no faith, he said, in the wavering multitude; and then he taunted them because a New England man had drawn up their petition. “If the people chose their own officers, he said, then the thief would vote for the thief, the smuggler for the smuggler, and fraud and vice would become privileged. No! he and the directors would never make themselves responsible to subjects.” The delegates attempted to reason, and the wilful old governor dissolved the assembly on pain of punishment. The directors sanctioned the conduct of Stuyvesant. “Have no regard to the consent of the people,” wrote they to him; “let them no longer indulge the visionary dream that taxes can be imposed only by their consent.” But the people obstinately indulged such dreams, and refused to pay obnoxious taxes; and, even more than that, in the determination to enjoy English liberties, saw with no unwillingness the possibility of English jurisdiction extending even over New Netherlands. A tempest was again brooding. Although the Dutch still kept possession of the country as far south as Cape Henlopen, yet their claims were disputed by Lord Baltimore, the proprietary of Maryland; and in 1659, that nobleman’s rights being established, Fendall, then governor, laid formal claim to Delaware; the College of Nineteen of the West India company firmly disavowed it; and Fendall, being equally determined, the directors declared their resolve to defend their rights, “even to the spilling of blood.” Nor was the aspect of affairs more pacific on the north. Massachusetts, as well as New Netherlands, claimed the territory adjoining the upper waters of the Hudson, and thence westerly as far as she pleased; whilst Connecticut, which had just then obtained a charter, put forth her claim to territory which the Dutch had hitherto held unquestioned. “Where, then,” demanded the Dutch, with reference to all these absorbing claims,—“where, then, is New Netherlands?” And the people of Connecticut, speaking as if for all, replied, “We do not know.”