leader was none other than Killian Van Rensselaer, the wealthy pearl merchant of Amsterdam, and one of the directors of the West India Company, who had received a grant from the Prince of Orange for a large tract of land about the Upper Hudson, including the present site of Albany. Here he established his "patroonship," guarding the affairs of the colony, and providing his tenants with comfortable houses and ample barns. And more than this, their spiritual welfare was promoted through the services of the Reverend Doctor Joanes Megapolensis. From his personal accounts we read that the good Dominie found his life among the 'wilden' as full of peril and unceasing labor as that of his flock; for he undertook not only the guidance of his own people, but the enlightenment and conversion of the Indians. To this end he threw himself into the task of mastering their language with true missionary zeal; a task which in those days meant not only difficulty but danger. Under the shelter of the handsome churches that grace the streets of the Albany of to-day, we see a striking contrast in the primitive house where this pioneer clergyman preached; and from the security of long-established peace, we look back upon those sturdy people of Rensselaerwyck who sowed and reaped and went to church under the protection of the Patroon's guns. But there came a day when English ships sailed up to the harbor at Manhatoes, and demanded the surrender of the Dutch colonies in the name of the Duke of York and Albany. The terrified people at sight of the guns refused to withstand an attack, and the English quietly came into possession. Van Rensselaer sent down his papers, and Fort Orange surrendered on the twenty-fourth of September, 1664, soon after receiving its new name in honor of the Duke's second title. Twenty-two years later, Albany had the satisfaction of sending two of her representatives, Peter Schuyler and Robert Livingston, to New York to claim her charter as a city; which, upon their return, was received, according to the old chronicler, "with all ye joy and acclamation imaginable."