the Pacific. Shut out by the ice from his projected course, he steered westward, and reaching the coast of Maine, cruised southward as far as Virginia, giving to Cape Cod, on the way, the name of New Holland. As he returned towards the north, he discovered Delaware Bay, and entered the River of the Mountains, as he called the stream since known by his own name. These waters, first visited, perhaps, by Cabot in the English, (1498,) then by Verrazzano in the French, (1524,) and then by Gomez in the Spanish (1525) service, were now more thoroughly explored by Hudson. As their discoverer, he returned to Holland, and as their possessors, the Dutch sent out various vessels to trade with the natives and to claim the shores, (1610-13.)

Company

Netherland.

The earliest of the Dutch posts was on the Island of New of Manhattan, (1613.) There the first craft of European construction was built and launched by Adrian Block, whose ship had been destroyed by fire. In his Manhattan vessel, appropriately called the Restless, Block went through Long Island Sound as far as Cápe Cod, then, leaving his name for Block Island, he returned home, (1614.) The prospects of the new country looking well, the association of Amsterdam and Hoorn merchants, by whom Block and other explorers had been employed, gave it the name of New Netherland, and applied to the States General for protection in their enterprise. This was obtained, in the shape of an exclusive right for three years “to visit and penetrate the said lands lying in America between New France and Virginia, whereof the coasts extend from the fortieth to the forty-fifth degrees of latitude;" that is, from Delaware to Passamaquoddy Bay. The association, taking the name of the United New Netherland Company, set themselves to work, (1614.) A fort was built at Manhattan; a fortified trading post was established up the river, near the present Albany, (1615.)

Meanwhile the little Restless, commanded by Cornelius Hendricksen, was exploring the coast to the southward, and ascending the Delaware, then called the South River, to distinguish it from the North, or Prince Maurice's River, as the Hudson was variously styled.

Proposals

Puritans.

The monopoly of the New Netherland Comof the pany expiring without their being able to obPlymouth tain its renewal, other parties entered into the trading operations of which the colony was the centre. But the old company, or rather a portion of its members, retained a sort of vantage ground. To them, accordingly, the Puritan exiles in Holland the same who settled Plymouth - addressed their proposals of emigrating to New Netherland. The party to whom the application was made petitioned the States General that the Puritans might be taken under the national protection, in which case the petition asserts "upwards of four hundred families " "from this country and from England" would settle in the Dutch colony, (February, 1620.) The prayer of the petitioners was refused.

West In

The New Netherland Company had ceased to dia Com- be a body in which the nation confided. An old pany. project of a West India Company was revived, and a corporation of that name established, with power, not only over New Netherland, but the entire American coast, (1621.) It was some time before the company began its operations; but when it did begin, it was evidently in earnest, (1623.)

Walloon Ten years had elapsed since the trading post on colony. Manhattan had been occupied, and there were still none but trading posts in all New Netherland. Not a colony worthy of the name as yet existed. The only plan that had ever been formed of establishing one came from the Plymouth Puritans. It is a singular coincidence that

the first colony to be actually established was one of refugees, like the Puritans, from persecution. These were a band of Protestant Walloons, from the Spanish Netherlands, who, after applying unsuccessfully to the London Company of England, enlisted as colonists under the West India Company of Holland. Sent out in the first expedition of the company, they settled at Waal-bogt, or Walloons' Bay, on the western shore of Long Island, (1623– 24.) Their settlement stands out amidst the surrounding trading posts as the one spot of home life in New Netherland. But it was a feeble settlement, and feeble it continued, although recruited by fresh fugitives from beyond

the sea.

New Am

The company was by no means absorbed in its terdam. Walloons. On the contrary, it was erecting forts, one on the North River, another on the South, and presently, the chief of all on Manhattan Island, (1626.) Purchasing the entire island from the natives for no less than twenty-four of our dollars, Peter Minuit, the company's director, commenced the erection of a fort, with some surrounding dwellings, to which the name of New Amsterdam was subsequently applied. This settlement was to New Netherland the same principal place that it has since become as New York to the United States. Other forts were gradually raised; that of Good Hope upon the Connecticut, and that of Beversrede upon the Schuylkill, (1633.) The dominion of the company was in force upon the soil not only of New York, but of Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and all within ten years of its first operations.

Patroons.

But upon this vast

surface the company's settlements were as dots. Several of them, indeed, had been obliterated, and of those that remained, hardly one besides New Amsterdam was any thing more than a sta

tion for trade. New Amsterdam itself was only a commercial settlement. Other posts of the same character had been begun, but the colony, as a whole, was in a languishing condition; the company, of course, being disappointed in their expectations of rich returns. To advance their interests, they offered a slice of territory and the title of patroon to any one who, within a given period, would settle a given number of colonists upon lands bought of the natives, (1629.) This regard for the Indians was not the only proof of liberality in the patroon system, as it may be styled. The support of a clergyman and a schoolmaster, with that of a "comforter for the sick," was especially enjoined as one of the conditions to be fulfilled by the patroons. But mixed up with the more generous provisions were others of a very opposite nature. The fur trade, the great attraction of New Netherland, was reserved exclusively to the company. Pain of banishment was to deter the colonists from "making woollen, linen, or cotton cloths." "As many negroes as can be conveniently provided " were promised to the Dutch settlers. All the while, the patroons were constituted a class of feudal lords, as threatening to their superiors in the company as to their inferiors in the colony. Large purchases were made by individuals, (1629-31,) and some settlements were attempted, the chief being those of Rensselaerswyck, near Albany, Pavonia, opposite Manhattan Island, and Swaanendael, on the Delaware. Some of these reverted to the company; some disappeared.

claims.

English Spain and France, as we have read, had their pretensions to the soil of New Netherland. But the only power to dispute the Dutch possession was England. Tradition asserts that the same Captain Argal who destroyed the French settlement in Maine visited the huts on Manhattan Island, as he was returning to Virginia, and

compelled the few Dutchmen whom he found there to acknowledge the English supremacy, (1613.) This is uncertain; but it is certain that when the New Netherland Company appealed to the States General in behalf of the Plymouth Puritans, they represented the danger of the colony's being surprised by an expedition sent to support the claims of England, (1620.) The Council for New England was soon engaged in appealing to the Privy Council against what they deemed to be an invasion of their territory. The appeal was received, and an order of inquiry into the circumstances went to the British ambassador in Holland. He replied that there was as yet no Dutch colony upon the soil, (1621.) But as time passed, and colonies were founded, the suspicions of the English, both in England and in America, were revived. A correspondence, opened by Peter Minuit, director of New Amsterdam, with William Bradford, governor of New Plymouth, stirred the Englishman to ask that the Dutch should trade no more in his neighborhood; and further, that they should clear their title to trade or to settle in any part of the country at all. No wonder that Minuit applied to the company in Holland for forty soldiers, (1627.) On his voyage home, a few years later, Minuit and his ship were detained on touching at Plymouth in England, and to the remonstrance of the Dutch embassy, the British ministry formally opposed the title of Great Britain to New Netherland, (1632.) It was soon after that the English settlements in Connecticut began to crowd upon the fort of the Dutch, (1633-38,) while a direct invasion of Delaware was made from Virginia, (1635.) This was repelled; but the soil of Connecticut could not be retained. The colony was still a colony of traders. No the colo- generous views, no manly energies, were as yet excited amongst its inhabitants or its rulers. From

Trade of

ny.

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