HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 169

Mr. Clark” is mentioned as the immediate successor of Domine Van Zuren. But of him nothing is known, and if such a person existed, it is quite probable that he was merely a temporary supply. At an events, in the carefully prepared “History of the Reformed Dutch Church in North America,” by the Rev. Dr. DeWitt, which we may safely assume to be the highest authority on these points, we find the name of the Rev. Rudolphus van Varic as minister of Kings County from 1685 to 1694. During the Leislerian troubles, in 1689, Mr. Varick, as well as the other Dutch ministers, stood out against the authority of Leisler, and was treated with much harshness, being dragged from his home, cast into the jail, deposed from his ministerial functions, and fined heavily. These severities, which were heaped upon him for alleged treasonable utterances against Leisler, undoubtedly hastened his death.1 His congregation, also, were divided, and many of them refused to pay his salary according to the terms upon which they called him from Holland, specially, as he says, in a petition to the Governor, Sept. 11th, 1691, for the six months of his imprisonment. The Court ordered the arrears of salary due him by his congregation to be collected, by distress, if necessary.2 Mr. Varick was naturalized on the 29th of July, 1686, and his posterity are to be found on the island.3

He was succeeded by the Rev. Wilhelmus Lupardus, whose ministry was terminated by death in 1701 or 2.

Being thus again deprived of a regular ministry, the people of the four towns empowered the elders of the churches within said towns to procure a minister, “either out of the province or out of Holland,” and the elders, after much deliberation, determined upon the Rev. Bernardus Freeman, of Schenectady, and applied to the Gov-

1 This is Secretary Clarkson's statement (Doc. Hist. N. Y., ii. 431, 432), but another party, not so favorably inclined, says that Varick was, at first, in favor of the revolu. tion of Leisler, and influenced Kings County to act unanimously in its favor; but that, afterwards, he was won over to a contrary opinion, and created a diversion in the popular mind. The same authority says that he was suspected by the people of conspiring to seize the fort in New York, was arrested, and released, after a time, upon his submission to Leisler; that he favored the execution of the latter, “made intolerable sermons” against him, and cherished animosity even to his dying day.

2 Council Minutes, vi. 55.

3 May 19, 1690, in an address to William and Mary, he styles himself “Pastor Ecelesiae Belgicae in Insulra Longa.”