Yet could the governor see the flag of his beloved New Netherland flouted in this fashion? Raging with anger, the word to fire trembling on his lips, Stuyvesant turned to listen to the advice of two Dutch clergymen who had hurried up to him. They begged him not to be the first to shed blood in a fight that could only end in their utter defeat. They were outnumbered, outmatched in every way. The governor knew this was so; no one in the colony indeed knew it better than he. "I won't open fire," he said, bitter rage in his heart, but he shook his fist at the white sails of the frigates. Stuyvesant left the rampart, leaving fifty men to defend the fort, and took the rest of the garrison, one hundred soldiers, down to the shore, to repel the English if they should try to land. He still had a faint hope that the English commander would make some terms with him that would allow him to keep the flag of Holland flying over New Amsterdam. With this faint hope he sent four of his chief officers with a flag of truce to Colonel Nicholls. They carried this message from Peter Stuyvesant: "I feel obliged to defend the city, in obedience to orders. It is inevitable that much blood will be shed on the occurrence of the assault. Cannot some accommodation yet be agreed upon? Friends will be welcome if they come in a friendly manner." So spoke the Dutch governor, trying to be patient and reasonable, no matter how hard such a course might be for him. Colonel Nicholls, sure of his greater power in men and guns, cared not a whit to be either reasonable or patient. He sent back a determined answer. "I have nothing to do but to execute my mission," he said. "To accomplish that I hope to have further conversation with you on the morrow, at the Manhattans. You say that friends will be welcome, if they come in a friendly manner. I shall come with ships and soldiers. And he will be bold indeed who will dare to come on board my ships, to demand an answer or to solicit terms. What then is to be done? Hoist the white flag of surrender, and then something may be considered." This haughty answer spread through New Amsterdam, and men and women rushed to the governor to beg him to surrender. Bombardment by the fleet would destroy all they owned, and doubtless kill many of them. Stuyvesant would have fought until his flag fell over a heap of ruins, but he knew that his people would not stand behind him. "I had rather," he told the men and women as they thronged about him, "be carried a corpse to my grave than to surrender the city!" The people went to the City Hall, and drew up a paper of protest to their governor. The protest said that the people could only see misery, sorrow, and fire in resistance, the ruin of fifteen hundred innocent men, women and children, only two hundred and fifty of whom were capable of bearing arms.