"I shall come with ships and soldiers," replied Nicolls; "raise the white flag of peace at the fort, and then something may be considered." When this imperious message became known, men, women, and children flocked to the director, beseeching him to submit. His only answer was, "I would rather be carried out dead." The next day the city authorities, the clergymen, and the officers of the burgher guard, assembling at the Stadt-Huys, at the suggestion of Domine Megapolensis, adopted a remonstrance to the director, exhibiting the hopeless situation of New Amsterdam, on all sides encompassed and hemmed in by enemies, and protesting against any further opposition to the will of God. Besides the _schout_, burgomasters, and schepens, the remonstrance was signed by Wilmerdonck and eighty-five of the principal inhabitants, among whom was Stuyvesant's own son, Balthazar. At last the director was obliged to yield. Although there were now fifteen hundred souls in New Amsterdam, there were not more than two hundred and fifty men able to bear arms, besides the one hundred fifty regular soldiers. The people had at length refused to be called out, and the regular troops were already heard talking of "where booty is to be found, and where the young women live who wear gold chains." The city, entirely open along both rivers, was shut on the northern side by a breastwork and palisades[3], which, though sufficient to keep out the savages, afforded no defense against a military siege. There were scarcely six hundred pounds of serviceable powder in store. A council of war had reported Fort Amsterdam untenable; for though it mounted twenty-four guns, its single wall of earth, not more than ten feet high and four thick, was almost touched by the private dwellings clustered around, and was commanded, within a pistol-shot, by hills on the north, over which ran the "Heereweg" or Broadway. Upon the faith of Nicolls' promise to deliver back the city and fort "in case the difference of the limits of this province be agreed upon betwixt his majesty of England and the high and mighty States-General," Stuyvesant now commissioned Counsellor John de Decker, Captain Nicholas Varlett, Dr. Samuel Megapolensis, Burgomaster Cornelius Steenwyck, old Burgomaster Oloff Stevenson van Cortlandt, and old Schepen Jacques Cousseau to agree upon articles with the English commander or his representatives. Nicolls, on his part, appointed Sir Robert Carr and Colonel George Cartwright, John Winthrop, and Samuel Willys, of Connecticut, and Thomas Clarke and John Pynchon, of Massachusetts. "The reason why those of Boston and Connecticut were joined," afterward explained the royal commander, "was because those two colonies should hold themselves the more engaged with us if the Dutch had been overconfident of their strength."