the most venerable of the patriots of Holland, to the CHAP. scaffold. XV. Nov. These events hastened the colonization of Manhattan. That the River Hudson for a season bore the name of Prince Maurice, implies his favor to those who harbored there. A few weeks after the first acts of violence, the States General gave a limited act of 1618. incorporation to a company of merchants; yet the conditions of the charter were not inviting, and no organization took place.' But after the triumph over intestine commotions, while the Netherlands were displaying unparalleled energy in their foreign relations, the scheme of a West India company was revived. The Dutch planted colonies only under the auspices of chartered companies; the States would never undertake the defence of foreign possessions. 3. The Dutch West India Company, which became the sovereign of the central portion of the United 1621. States, incorporated for twenty-four years, with a June pledge of a renewal of its charter, were invested, on the part of the Netherlands, with the exclusive privilege to traffic and plant colonies on the coast of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope; on the coast of America, from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north. Subscription to the joint stock was open to men of every nation; the States General gave to the company half a million of guilders, as an encouragement, and were also stockholders to the amount of another half million. The franchises of the company were immense, that it might have power to act with independence; the States General did not 1 Wagenaar, x. 306, 307. 2 Ibid. x. 429, &c. Charter, in Hazard, i. 121-131. Compare, on the company, the special work of &c. 1621. CHAP. guaranty its possessions, or any specific territory, and, XV. in case of war, were to be known only as allies and patrons. The company might conquer provinces at its own risk. England, in its patents, made the conversion of the natives a prominent purpose; the Dutch were chiefly intent "on promoting trade;" the English charters gave protection to the political rights of the colonists against the proprietaries; the Dutch, who had no popular liberty at home, bestowed no thought on colonial representation; the company, subject to the approval of the States General, had absolute power over its possessions. Branches of the company, five in all, were established in the principal cities of Netherlands; the charge of New Netherlands belonged to the branch at Amsterdam. The government of the whole was intrusted to a board of nineteen, of whom eighteen represented the five branches, and one was named by the States. Thus did the little nation of merchants give away continents; and the corporate company, invested with a claim to more than a hemisphere, gradually culled from its boundless grant the rich territories of Guinea, Brazil, and New Netherlands. Colonization on the Hudson was neither the motive nor the main object of the establishment of the Dutch West India Company; the territory of the New Netherlands was not described either in the charter, or at that time in any public act of the States General, which neither made a formal specific grant, nor offered to guaranty the tranquil possession of a single foot of land. The company was to lay its own plans, and provide for its own protection.' 1 There is no sufficient evidence pare Thurloe, v. 81; Blome, Dougof a negotiation with James I. for a lass, and Ebeling, iii. 12. station in New York harbor. Com XV. Yet the period of the due organization' of the com- CHAP. pany was the epoch of zealous efforts at colonization. The name of the southern county and cape of New 1623. Jersey still attests the presence of Cornelius Mey, who not only visited Manhattan, but entering the bay, and ascending the River of Delaware, known as the South River of the Dutch, took possession of the territory. On Timber Creek, a stream that enters the Delaware a few miles below Camden, he built Fort Nassau.3 The country from the southern shore of Delaware Bay, to New Holland' or Cape Cod, became known as New 1623. Netherlands. This is the era of the permanent settlement of New York.5 Round the new block-house on Manhattan, the cottages of New Amsterdam began to cluster; the country assumed the form of a colony, and Peter Minuits, the commercial agent of the West India 1624. Company, held for six years the office of governor.® In 1625, there was certainly one family on Long Island, and a child of European parentage was born." Reprisals on Spanish commerce were the great object of the West India Company; the North American colony was, for some years, little more than an 1 Wagenaar, x. 431. De Laet, L. iii. c. xi. Wsselinx in Arg. Gust. 41. 43. Compare Moulton's New York, p. 363. 2 Porey, in Purchas, vol. v. calls the Delaware by the Dutch name, the South River. 3 The early authority is abundant. Albany Records, xviii. 467. "The South River occupied by the Dutch more than 36 years." This was written Sept. 20, 1659. Still further, De Vries' voyages. So too Beschrijving, &c. in S. Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, i. 4. Compare also Rudman, in Clay's Annals of the Swedes, 15, 16; Lambrechtsten's Korte Beschrijving, &c. XV. CHAP inconsiderable establishment for trade, where Indians, even from the St. Lawrence, exchanged beaver-skins for European manufactures. The Spanish prizes, taken by the chartered privateers, on a single occasion in 1628, were almost eighty fold more valuable than the whole amount of exports from New Netherlands for the four preceding years. 1627. In 1627, there was a first interchange of courtesies with the Pilgrims. De Razier, the second in comOct. 4. mand among the Dutch, went as envoy to Plymouth. On the south of Cape Cod, he was met by a boat from the Old Colony, and "honorably attended with the noise of trumpets." A treaty of friendship and commerce was proposed. The Pilgrims, who had English hearts, questioned the title of the Dutch to the banks of the Hudson, and recommended a treaty with England; the Dutch, with greater kindness, advised their old friends to remove to the rich meadows on the Connecticut. Harmony prevailed. "Our children after us," said the Pilgrims, "shall never forget the good and courteous entreaty, which we found in your country; and shall desire your prosperity forever." Such was the benediction of Plymouth on New Amsterdam; at the same time, the Pilgrims, rivals for the beavertrade, begged the Dutch not to send their skiffs into the Narragansett.1 to These were the rude beginnings of New York. Its 1620 first age was the age of hunters and Indian traders; 1638. of traffic in the skins of otters and beavers; when the native tribes were employed in the pursuit of game, and the yachts of the Dutch, in quest of furs, penetrated every bay, and bosom, and inlet, from Narragansett to 1 Bradford, in Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 51-57. Morton's Memorial. Compare Baylies' Plymouth, and XV. the Delaware. It was the day of straw roofs, and CHAP. wooden chimneys, and windmills. in feudal institutions followed. The experiment While the company of merchant warriors, conducting 1629. their maritime enterprises like princes, were conquering the rich fleets of Portugal and Spain, and, by their successes, pouring the wealth of America into the lap of the Netherlands, the States General' interposed to subject the government of foreign conquests to a council of nine; and the College of Nineteen adopted a charter of privileges for patrons who desired to plant colonies in New Netherlands. The document is curious, for it was analogous to the political institutions of the Dutch of that day. The colonies in America were to resemble the lordships in the Netherlands. To every one who would emigrate on his own account, as much land as he could cultivate was promised; but emigration was not expected to follow from the enterprise of the cultivators of the soil. The boors in Holland enjoyed as yet no political franchises, and were equally destitute of the mobility which is created by the consciousness of political importance. To subordinate proprietaries New Netherlands was to owe its tenants. He that within four years would plant a colony of fifty souls, became Lord of the Manor, or Patron, possessing in absolute property the lands he might colonize. Those lands might extend sixteen miles in length; or, if they lay upon both sides of a river, eight miles on each bank, stretching as far into the interior as the situation might require; yet it was stipulated that the soil must 1 Lambrechtsten, Korte Besch. 2 See the charter in Moulton, 389-398. It is to be regretted that Moulton has not continued his |