cleared. The hog-pens which had been in front of the houses were taken
away. All the fences were put in repair, and where weeds had grown rank,
they were replaced by pretty gardens. These, and a great many other
things he did, until the town took on quite a new air.

Up to this time the people had been ruled by governors who did all
things just as they saw fit. They became tired of this, and complained
so much that the Company in Holland decided to make a change. So after
Stuyvesant had been Governor for a while, some other officers were
appointed to help him. There was one officer called a schout, very
much the same as a mayor is in these days. Two others were called
burgomasters, and five others were called schepens. The burgomasters
and the schepens presided over the trials, in the stone tavern which
Governor Kieft had built at Coenties Slip, and which had now become
the Stadt Huys or City Hall.

[Illustration: The Old Stadt Huys of New Amsterdam.]

With the appointment of these officers, New Amsterdam became a city.
But as Governor Stuyvesant named the officers and as he plainly told
them that they must not interfere with his orders, and as he still had
his own way, regardless of what the officers said and did, the colony
was little different as a city from what it had been before.

In the fall of this year, 1652, war was declared between England and
Holland. Stuyvesant, fearing that the English in New England, which
was on the borders of New Netherland, would attack the city, set about
fortifying it. The fence that Governor Kieft had built so that the
cattle could not wander away was changed into a wall that extended from
river to river. The fort was repaired, and a strong body of citizens