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and fitted out two vessels and resolved to exercise Dutch authority in New Holland. They attacked and plundered four Massachusetts trading vessels and warned all such out of the "jurisdiction of the Prince of Orange." The bark Tryall, captured in the River St. John,^[1] they claimed had supplies from Port Royal for Fort Jemseg, where the French had again established themselves with the help of reinforcements from Port Royal transported by Boston vessels. Another of the vessels seized by the representatives of the Prince of Orange was the Philip, belonging to John Freake of Boston, who, on February 15, 1675, lodged a complaint with the Governor and Magistrates of Massachusetts concerning the seizure of his vessel "in the River of St. John by one John Rhoade and some Dutchmen his complices." The Massachusetts authorities sent out an armed expedition under command of Captain Samuel Mosely, who, in company with a French vessel, destroyed Rhoade's trading posts, captured him and his goods, and carried all the Dutch' representatives prisoners to Boston, where they arrived April 2, 1675.

They were tried at Boston by special Court of Admiralty for piracy. As subjects of the Prince of Orange, "inhabitants in his highnesses' territories in New Holland, alias Nova Scotia," they placed before the court an elaborate and ably written defence. This defence, among other points, aptly cites Major Sedgwick's expedition into Acadia, in 1654, when Great Britain and France were at peace. In giving an account of the Dutch conquest of Acadia, the defence relates: