The methods of local self-government were quietly transformed. Under the Dutch, the towns, manors, and villages held direct relations with the West India Company. A systematic code drawn by Nicolls and a convention of the settlers (1665)--promulgated as "the duke's laws"--provided for town-meetings for the election in each town by a "plurality of the voices of the freeholders," of a constable and eight overseers. These officers were the governing board of the town, with judicial and legislative powers, thus differing from the New England selectmen, who but carried out the mandates of the town-meeting. There was created a judicial district called a "riding," with an area embracing several towns and presided over by a sheriff. In 1683, these ridings developed into counties; afterwards (1703), it was arranged that a supervisor was to be elected by the freeholders in each town, to represent it in a county board whose duties were chiefly to levy, collect, and apportion taxes. Thus we see the genesis in the middle colonies of the mixed system of local government,--town and county being of equal importance, with elective executive officers in each: it was a compromise between the town system of New England and the county system of Virginia; and this mixed system now prevails in perhaps most of the States of the Union. The duke's charter enabled him to make all laws, without asking the advice or assistance of the freemen. By "the duke's laws," power was vested in the hands of the governor and council, the people being wholly ignored in all matters above the affairs of the riding. Perfect religious liberty was allowed throughout the province. Sidenote: Recapture by the Dutch. In 1672 England and Holland were again at war, and Francis Lovelace, then governor of New York, made such preparations as he could against anticipated attack. The Dutch colonists had had more or less trouble about taxes with the English authorities, and there had been some friction because the duke had made grants to Carteret and Berkeley in what afterwards by the release became New Jersey, and thus had still further complicated land-titles; but in general the English rule had been borne with comparative equanimity. Nevertheless, the Dutch were highly delighted when a fleet from Holland appeared before the city (1673), and easily secured the surrender of the place. Sidenote: England again in possession. Fifteen months later (1674) the treaty of Westminster ceded the province back to England, and it became New York once more. The population at this time was about seven thousand. Sidenote: The rule of Andros.