[28] The above deed to the Corporation of New-York did not extend to the River. January 15, 1717, Samuel Garritsen, of Gravesend, quitclaimed to David Aersen of Brooklyn, all his right and title to a piece of land, “lying next to the house and land belonging to the City of New-York, bounded north-west by the River, south-east by the highway that goes to the ferry, south-west by the house and land belonging to the City of New-York, and north-east by the house and land belonging to the said John Rapalje, containing one acre be the same more or less.” On the 16th day of the same month, David Aersen sold this property to Gerrit Harsum of New-York, Gunsmith, for the sum of _L_108 current money of New-York. [29] The compiler congratulates his fellow citizens on the extinction of those national animosities which in former times existed between the Dutch and English in this our happy country. We may now truly ask with Sterne, “are we not all relations?” [30] “Lord Cornbury came to this province in very indigent circumstances, hunted out of England by a host of hungry creditors, he was bent on getting as much money as he could squeeze out of the purses of an impoverished people.” He was infamous for his “excessive avarice his embezzlement of the public money, and his sordid refusal to pay his private debts.” Cornbury became so obnoxious to the inhabitants of this province, that they sent a complaint to England against him. The Queen in consequence of this complaint displaced him. “As soon as his lordship was superseded, his creditors threw him into the custody of the sheriff of New-York.” See Smith’s History of New-York. Such was the man from whom the corporation of New-York obtained the rights of the town of Brooklyn. [31] These “divers former governors,” &c. are limited to two, viz. Nicolls, who in 1665 granted them a charter, if that may be strictly called so, which only altered their form of government from scout, burgomasters, and schepens, to mayor and aldermen, without a word about ferries or water rights, or indeed any other matter--the original of which paper is not in existence. There is nothing to warrant a belief that there was a charter of any kind granted to the corporation between Nicolls and Dongan, who is the second of these “divers former governors,” &c. and who in 1686 granted them the ferry, (as is mentioned in a former part of this work) with an express reservation as to the rights of all others. The charter of Dongan, notwithstanding all their pompous recitals, is the oldest they can produce, which in any manner affects the interests of this town. [32] The corporation of New-York appear to have abandoned the right of regulating the rate of ferriage very early; for in 1717, nine years after the date of this charter, an act was passed by the colonial legislature for that purpose.