Peter Stuyvesant

"Nothing is of greater importance than the right early instruction of youth."

"I shall govern you as a father his children."

"We derive our authority from God and the West India Company, not from the pleasure of a few ignorant subjects."

"The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, but learning that they (with their customary usury and deceitful trading with the Christians) were very repugnant to the inferior magistrates, as also to the people having the most affection for you; the Deaconry also fearing that owing to their present indigence they might become a charge in the coming winter, we have, for the benefit of this weak newly developing place and land in general, deemed it useful to require them in a friendly way to depart; praying also most seriously in this connection, for ourselves also for the general community of your worships, that the deceitful race — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ — not be allowed further to infect and trouble this new colony."