From page 14, "The Melyn Patroonship of Staten Island," address delivered at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the New York Branch of The Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America, Held in the City of New York, April 29th, 1921, by William Churchill Houston of Germantown, Philadelphia, 1923:

In the office of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, New York, there hangs a picture, painted by John Ward Dunsmore, portraying the departure of the Princess Amelia which left the shores of New Netherland August 17, 1647, for Holland. Out on the river is seen the waiting ship flying the flag of the Dutch West India Company and on the shore are assembled two noteworthy groups; in the one on the left are Peter Stuyvesant and the members of his Council, together with the ex-Director William Kieft, who is departing for home having with him a fortune estimated at four hundred thousand guilders. On the right are the Skipper and the banished citizens, Kuyter and Melyn, together with the latter's young son. They bore themselves proudly, however, saying that they went as good Patriots and Proprietors of New Netherland. While the artist has been obliged to draw very freely on his imagination, he has given a graphic picture of a very stirring event, and depicts the historic commencement of a voyage which was to have a most disastrous ending as the Princess Amelia, navigated by mistake into the Bristol Channel on September 27, 1647, struck upon a rock, and was wrecked on the rugged coast of Wales. Seeing the approach of death Kieft's conscience smote him and turning toward Kuyter and Melyn he said, "Friends, I have been unjust to you, can you forgive me?" Kieft and eighty other persons, including the son of Cornelis Melyn, were drowned; Kuyter clinging to a part of the wreck on which stood a cannon, was thrown ashore; Melyn, after having floated hither and thither at sea for about eighteen hours, was driven on a sand bank from which he reached the main land in safety.