The Dutch had made their first settlement in 1626 as an outcome of the foundation of the Dutch West India Company five years before. In its functions this corporation very closely resembled the English East India Company, for it made a special combination of naval and commercial affairs, and almost its first work was the establishment of the New Netherland settlement on Long Island and along the River Hudson. Their chief town was planted on Manhattan Island and called New Amsterdam, the population of which soon after its foundation was 270 souls. A contemporary narrative speaks cheerfully of the probable success of the colony, and states that they had a prosperous beginning and that "the natives of New Netherland are very well disposed so long as no injury is done them."[169] But from the very first the governors were bad; it was in fact irregularities in administration and want of enterprise and courage that caused the recall of Van Twiller in 1637. His successor Kieft proved himself equally incapable, for he was arbitrary and ill-advised, earning the detestation of both Dutch patroons and English settlers. The colonists themselves were few and poor, and the methods employed by the Company lacked any trace of liberality or real knowledge of colonial affairs. Peter Stuyvesant, "that resolute soldier," came into office in 1647; he was the best governor who up to that time had been sent out, but he was nothing more than a martinet, without either sympathy or flexibility. Van der Douch in 1650 described the colony as sadly decayed, and gave as the reasons that "the Managers of the Company adopted a wrong course at first, and as we think had more regard for their own interests than for the welfare of the country.... It seems as if from the first the Company have sought to stock this land with their own _employés_, which was a great mistake, for when their time was out, they returned home.... Trade, without which, when it is legitimate, no country is prosperous, is by their acts so decayed that the like is nowhere else. It is more suited for slaves than freemen in consequence of the restrictions upon it ... we would speak well of the government ... under Director Stuyvesant, which still stands, if indeed that may be called standing, which lies completely under foot."[170]