Note 67 — III. Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel. A History of the Successful Struggle of a few Hollanders and Huguenots against Tyranny and Corruption.

This grant was of course illegal, as being in opposition to the orders of the directors in 1668, and Elsevier’s making use of it was the ground of his dismissal from the service when the directors became acquainted with the circumstances. There is so little on record concerning it that it is not now possible to say why Simon van der Stel acted as he did, but he may have reasoned that as the lord of Mydrecht would have given ground to the secunde in 1685, if the holder of the situation at that time had chosen to accept it, it would not be wrong to give it to another secunde. This is only supposition, but I cannot think of anything else that would have caused the old governor to overstep his authority in this manner.