The present translation is substantially that of Mr. Henry C. Murphy, as presented in his edition of 1867 (see the Introduction, post). Mr. Murphy was an excellent Dutch scholar. Careful comparisons have been made, at various points, between his translation and the original manuscript, of which the Long Island Historical Society, its present possessor, kindly permitted an examination to be made. These comparisons, made partly by the general editor of the series and partly by Mr. S. G. Nissensen of New York (to whom cordial thanks are rendered), showed that Mr. Murphy's translation was in the main excellent. Some revision and correction of it has been effected by Mr. Nissensen and by the general editor. In particular the spelling of the proper names has been brought into accord with that of the original manuscript, except that certain familiar names, after being once given in the original spelling, have thereafter been put into their modern forms.

Danckaerts's descriptions of his Atlantic voyages to America and back, especially the former, are excessively long, and at times tedious. It has been found possible to omit some portions of these without impairing the interest or value of the narrative or excluding any useful information.

Of the three illustrations, the frontispiece is a photographic reproduction of one of Danckaerts's pen-and-ink sketches accompanying the diary. It has never before been photographically reproduced, though lithographed in Mr. Murphy's book. It represents New York from the southeast, as seen in 1680 from Brooklyn Heights, and is obviously of great interest, being topographically accurate, and drawn with no slight degree of skill. Thanks are due to the Long Island Historical Society for permission to reproduce it, and to the society's secretary, Miss Emma J. Toedteberg.

That portion of the journal which relates to the Delaware River and northeastern Maryland is illustrated by a photographic reproduction of the northeast corner of the celebrated map of Maryland which Augustine Herrman made for Lord Baltimore, and which was published in 1673 (see infra, p. 114 and p. 297, note 2). The portion reproduced extends from the falls of the Delaware as far down the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay as our travellers went. It is photographed from the photolithographic copy made from the unique original in the British Museum by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, and published by him in 1912, but is reduced to dimensions about two-thirds of those of the original.

To illustrate the North River journey of the diarist, and the other parts of his narrative centring around New York, a section is presented of the map of 1671 entitled "Novi Belgii, quod nunc Novi Jorck vocatur, Novaeque Angliae et Partis Virginiae Accuratissima et Novissima Delineatio" (Most Accurate and Newest Delineation of New Belgium, now called New York, of New England, and of Part of Virginia). This map appeared both in Montanus's Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (Amsterdam, 1671) and in Ogilby's America (London, 1671). It is N.J. Visscher's map of 1655 or 1656 (for which see the volume in this series entitled Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, etc., introductory note, and map opposite p. 170), with slight alterations made in order to adapt it more closely to the date 1671.

For the names of the two Labadist agents, Mr. Murphy adopted the forms Dankers and Sluyter. These he apparently took from references to them by others, for the journal, except once in the case of Sluyter, gives only the assumed names, Schilders and Vorstman, by which alone they were at first known in America. Domine Selyns of New York, in his letter to Willem À Brakel,[1] gives their true names. For the proper spelling of the diarist's name, it should seem that we should rely on his own signature to his note prefixed to his copy of Eliot's Indian Old Testament.[2] There the spelling is Danckaerts, and such is the form used by the family, still or till lately extant in Zeeland. But the form Dankers occurs often in contemporary references.

The case of his companion presents no difficulty. The register of students at the University of Leyden, Album Studiosorum Academiae Lugduno-Batavae (Hague, 1875), gives, under date of 1666, "Petrus Sluyter Vesaliensis, 21, T," i.e., Peter Sluyter of Wesel, 21 years old, student of theology, which no doubt is our traveller, known to have studied theology and, from Labadist sources relating to Herford, to have come originally from Wesel. Our traveller's will, dated January 20, 1722, the original of which is preserved in the court house of Cecil County at Elkton, Maryland, is signed in autograph, "Petrus Sluyter alias Vorsman," and it seems that this must be regarded as authoritative. The Maryland family descended from the Labadist leader's brother used the same spelling. Schluter is found in some contemporary sources, Schluyter and Sluter in others,[3] while on the title-page of a book translated by our traveller from French into Dutch, and printed at Herford in 1672,[4] presumably under his eye, the spelling is Sluiter. But his signature should be conclusive.

The annotations in this volume are by the general editor of the series.

J.F.J.