The colony entrusted to his charge was nearly ruined.

It was time to humble himself before the Most High, and invoke from heaven the mercy which the Christian had refused the savage.
"A day of general fasting and prayer was proclaimed.

'We continue to suffer much trouble and loss from the heathen, and many of our inhabitants see their lives and property in jeopardy, which is doubtless owing to our sins,' was Kieft's contrite confession, as he exhorted every one penitently to supplicate the mercy of God, 'so that his holy name may not, through our iniquities, be blasphemed by the heathen.'" The people still held the Director responsible for all the consequences which had followed the massacres of Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook.

They boldly talked of arresting and deposing him, and of sending him, as a culprit, back to Holland.

The Director, panic stricken, endeavored to shift the responsibility of the insane course which had been pursued, upon one Adriansen, an influential burgher, who was the leading man among the petitioners who had counselled war.
Adriansen was now a ruined man.