The States-General were more and more dissatisfied with the measures of Governor Stuyvesant. The treaty of Hartford was severely censured. They said that the Connecticut river should have been the eastern boundary of New Netherland, and that the whole of Long Island should have been retained. Even the West India Company became convinced that it was necessary to make some concessions to the commonalty at Manhattan. They therefore communicated to Stuyvesant their consent that the "burgher government" should be established, which the committee of Nine had petitioned for in behalf of the commonalty, in 1649, and which the States-General had authorized in 1650. By this arrangement the people were to elect seven representatives, who were to form a municipal court of justice, subject to the right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the province. The sheriff was also invested with new powers. He was to convoke and preside at the municipal court, to prosecute all offenders against the laws, and to take care that all the judgments of the court should be executed. The people at Manhattan had thus won, to a very considerable degree, the popular government which they had so long desired. Quite to the amazement of the Directors of the West India Company, the States-General recalled Stuyvesant, ordering him to return immediately to Holland to give an account of his administration. He had been in the main the faithful agent of the Company, carrying out its wishes in opposition to popular reform. They therefore wrote to him, stating that the requirement was in violation of their charter, and requesting him "not to be in too much haste to commence his voyage, but to delay it until the receipt of further orders." It so happened, however, that then the States-General were just on the eve of hostilities with England. It was a matter of the first importance that New Netherland should be under the rule of a governor of military experience, courage and energy. No man could excel Stuyvesant in these qualities. Yielding to the force of circumstances, the States-General revoked their recall. Thus narrowly Stuyvesant escaped the threatened humiliation. The English government was angry with Holland for refusing to expel the royalist refugees, who, after the execution of Charles I., had taken refuge in Holland. The commerce of the Dutch Republic then covered every sea. England, to punish the Dutch and to revive her own decaying commerce, issued, by Parliamentary vote, her famous "Act of Navigation," which was exultantly proclaimed at the old London Exchange "with sound of trumpet and beat of drum."