city of Amsterdam. Stuyvesant prepared against an attack by ordering the citizens to dig a ditch from the North River to the East River and to erect a fortification. In 1653, a convention of two deputies from each village in New Netherland demanded reforms, and Stuyvesant commanded that assembly to disperse, saying: "We derive our authority from God and the company, not from a few ignorant subjects." In the summer of 1655, he sailed down the Delaware River with a fleet of seven vessels and about 700 men and took possession of the colony of New Sweden, which was renamed "New Amstel." In his absence, Pavonia was attacked by Native Americans, during the "Peach War" on 15 September 1655. In 1657, the directors of the Dutch West India Company wrote to Stuyvesant to tell him that they were not going to be able to send him all the tradesmen that he requested and that he would have to purchase slaves in addition to the tradesmen he would receive. During the colonial era, New York City became both a site from which fugitives fled bondage and a destination for runaways. The colonies closest to New Netherland, Connecticut and Maryland, encouraged Dutch slaves to escape and refused to return them. In 1650, Governor Petrus Stuyvesant threatened to offer freedom to Maryland slaves unless that colony stopped sheltering runaways from the Dutch outpost. However, he is also noted as having trafficked minority settlers at auction. In 1660, Stuyvesant was quoted as saying that "Nothing is of greater importance than the early instruction of youth." In 1661, New Amsterdam had one grammar school, two free elementary schools, and had licensed 28 schoolmasters. Religious freedom Stuyvesant did not tolerate full religious freedom in the colony, and was strongly committed to the supremacy of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1657 he refused to allow Lutherans the right to organize a church. When he also issued an ordinance forbidding them from worshiping in their own homes, the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company, three of whom were Lutherans, told him to rescind the order and allow private gatherings of Lutherans. The Company position was that more tolerance led to more trade and more profit. Freedom of religion was further tested when Stuyvesant refused to allow the permanent settlement of Jewish refugees from Dutch Brazil in New Amsterdam (without passports), and join the handful of existing Jewish