Along with their landed estates, these directors had a copious inflowing revenue. The Dutch West India Company was in a thriving condition. By the year 1629 it had more than one hundred full-rigged ships in commission. Most of them were fitted out for war on the commerce of other countries or on pirates. Fifteen thousand seamen and soldiers were on its payroll; in that one year it used more than one hundred thousand pounds of powder--significant of the grim quality of business done. It had more than four hundred cannon and thousands of other destructive weapons.[5] Anything conducive to profit, no matter if indiscriminate murder, was accepted as legitimate and justifiable functions of trade, and was imposed alike upon royalty, which shared in the proceeds, and upon the people at large. The energetic trading class, concentrated in the one effort of getting money, and having no scruples as to the means in an age when ideals were low and vulgar, had already begun to make public opinion in many countries, although this public opinion counted for little among submissive peoples. It was the king and the governing class, either or both, whose favor and declarations counted; and so long as these profited by the devious extortions and villainies of trade the methods were legitimatized, if not royally sanctified. AN ARISTOCRACY SOLIDLY GROUNDED. A more potentially robust aristocracy than that which was forming in New Netherlands could hardly be imagined. Resting upon gigantic gifts of land, with feudal accompaniments, it held a monopoly, or nearly one, of the land's resources. The old aristocracy of Holland grew jealous of the power and pretensions of what it frowned upon as an upstart trading clique and tried to curtail the rights and privileges of the patroons. These latter contended that their absolute lordship was indisputable; to put it in modern legal terminology that a contract could not be impaired. They elaborated upon the argument that they had spent a "ton of gold" (amounting to one hundred thousand guilders or forty thousand dollars) upon their colonies.[6] They not only carried their point but their power was confirmed and enlarged. Now was seen the spectacle of the middle-class men of the Old World, the traders, more than imitating--far exceeding--the customs and pretensions of the aristocracy of their own country which they had inveighed against, and setting themselves up as the original and mighty landed aristocracy of the new country. The patroons encased themselves in an environment of pomp and awe. Like so many petty monarchs each had his distinct flag and insignia; each fortified his domain with fortresses, armed with cannon and manned by his paid soldiery. The colonists were but humble dependants; they were his immediate subjects and were forced to take the oath of fealty and allegiance to him.[7]