Here you will find the Poem In Praise of New Netherland of poet Jacob Steendam
"You poor, who know not how your living to obtain; You affluent, who seek in mind to be content; Choose you New Netherland, which no one shall disdain; Before you time and stregth here fruitlessly are spent. The birds obscure the sky, so numerous in their flight; The animals roam wild, and flatten down the ground; The fish swarm in the waters and exclude the light; The oysters there, than which none better can be found; Are piled up, heap on heap, till islands they attain; And vegetation clothes the forest, mean and plain. ...a living view does always meet your eye, Of Eden, and the promised land of Jacob's seed; Who would not, then, in such a formed community, Desire to be a Freeman; and the rights decreed, To each and every one, by Amstel's burgher lords, T'enjoy? and treat with honor what their rule awards?"