Thomas Baxter, listed by Stokes as 'an Englishman' became a privateer with ties to the colony of Newport Rhode Island.     

He is associated with the privateer frigate La Garce, and was accused of stealing another ship: https://encyclopedia.nahc-mapping.org/document/bond-thomas-more-and-isa…;

History of the State of New York First Period 1609 — I664, by John Romeyn Brodhead "The organization of the municipal government of New Amsterdam took place at the most important crisis which the Dutch province had yet seen. Holland and England were now at open war.

The Puritan colonies, sympathizing with Parliament, longed to make New Netherland a trophy of the strife, and to extend the English power from Stamford to the Chesapeake. Stuyvesant, foreseeing his danger, wrote to the several governments of Virginia and New England, expressing the friendly feelings both of the West India Company and of the authorities of New Netherland, and proposing that the commercial intercourse between the Dutch and English colonies should continue on its former peaceful footing, notwithstanding the hostilities between their mother countries.

At the same time, he did not neglect proper military precautions at home. He communicated to a joint meeting of the provincial council, and to the burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam, the dispatches from the West India Company ; and also informed them of the military preparations which were now in progress in New England. The meeting promptly resolved that "the whole body of citizens" should mount guard every night ; that Fort Amsterdam should be repaired; and as it was not large enough to contain all the inhabitants, that the city should be enclosed, from the East to the North River, by a ditch and palisades with a breastwork.  (This is what we now call 'the Wall'.) 

Schipper Visscher was directed to keep his sails always ready, and "his gun loaded day and night." To defray all these expenses, the city government proposed to raise about six thousand guilders, by a loan from the principal citizens, to be repaid by a tax upon the commonalty. In two days, upward of five thousand guilders were subscribed.

A contract was made with Thomas Baxter to provide palisades twelve feet high and eighteen inches in girth; and the inhabitants, "without one exception," were required to work at the fortifications, under penalty of fine, loss of citizenship, and banishment. Nor did the people forget, in the time of their trouble, to call upon the Almighty for aid ; and the ninth of April was ordered to be observed as a day of fasting and prayer throughout the province. The inhabitants at Beverwyck and Fort Orange were likewise directed to assist those of Rensselaerswyck in putting the redoubt and other defenses in good repair."

Page 564-7