On August 27, 1664, a fleet of four British warships under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) and demanded that Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, surrender the colony to the British. The out-gunned Stuyvesant had no choice but to comply, and under English rule Nicolls became the first governor of the renamed Province of New York. This document lists the articles of capitulation by which the colony was surrendered and that established the rights of Dutch settlers under English rule. Among the 24 articles were provisions that guaranteed certain permanent rights, including liberty of conscience in divine worship and church discipline, the possession of property rights, and the right of the Dutch to follow their own customs with regard to inheritance. The English seizure of New Netherland was one of the reasons why the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665–67 occurred, and it was not until the Treaty of Westminster in 1674 that the government of the Netherlands formally acknowledged the transfer of the colony to the English. Colonial America; Great Britain--Colonies; Netherlands--Colonies; New Netherland; New York (Colony); Politics and government