9 Differences between Dutch and English Calvinists prefigured those between Yankees and Yorkers. Besides the familiar texts such as Bradford’s Plymouth Plantation, much manuscript material exists in English archives such as the Ralph Thoresby diary in the York Archeological Society. In 1678, Thoresby was in Rotterdam. “I could not but with sorrow observe one sinful custom of the place,” he wrote, “it being customary for all sorts to profane the Lord’s day by singing, playing, walking, sewing, etc., which was a great trouble to me, because they profess the name of Christ, and are of the Reformed churches.” Ralph Thoresby Diary, 14 July 1678, ms. 21, YASL.

10 The preferred estimate of 98,000 is from Thomas L. Purvis, “The European Ancestry of the United States Population, 1790,” WMQ3 (1984), 98. Other estimates by Wacker, Hansen and Swierenga are a little higher—in the range of 100,000 to 110,000. The doubling time of the old Dutch population in the Hudson Valley was approximately 35 years, compared with 25 to 28 years for New England and the Delaware colonies.