<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (November 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (November 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> In March 1664, Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland resolved to annex New Netherland and "bring all his Kingdoms under one form of government, both in church and state, and to install the Anglican government as in old England ." The directors of the Dutch West India Company concluded that the religious freedom, which they offered in New Netherland, would dissuade English colonists from working toward their removal . They wrote to Director - General Peter Stuyvesant: </P> <P>... we are in hopes that as the English at the north (in New Netherland) have removed mostly from old England for the causes aforesaid, they will not give us henceforth so much trouble, but prefer to live free under us at peace with their consciences than to risk getting rid of our authority and then falling again under a government from which they had formerly fled . </P>

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