IVE days after the Half-Moon departed from the port of Amsterdam, on the way, as it proved, to the site of its namesake and prototype in the New World, a truce was signed at Antwerp by the representatives of the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic and those of the powerful kingdom of Spain. This truce meant much to the United Provinces beyond the mere suspension of hostilities; and taking place in the very year of the discovery of the site of New-York, what it meant to them becomes of especial significance to us in a study of the history of our city. Whatever it involved of political importance, of national development, of the success of republican ideas, gives it a high rank among the events that preceded and influenced the settlement of this locality. So that, indeed, a somewhat careful though brief review of the circumstances that led up to and attended its accomplishment will constitute at the same time a review of the antecedents of New Netherland. The truce of 1609 gave a temporary pause to the famous "Eighty Years' War," which was sustained by the United Provinces of the Netherlands in their struggle for political independence. In 1568 that war began, so far as regards the resort to arms; for on May 23d of that year was fought the Lexington of the Dutch Revolution at Heiligerlee, in Groningen. But the real beginning of troubles dates many

years further back. In fact, the origin of the Revolution is almost contemporaneous with that of the Reformation. In 1521 Luther had appeared before the Diet of Worms, and there, in the hearing of the Emperor and princes and prelates of the Holy Roman Empire, had taken his irrevocable stand. He and his doctrines were branded with the fatal stamp of heresy, and he and his adherents devoted to the fiery destruction which, in that age, heresy was thought to deserve. In 1522 the Emperor of Germany, Charles V., put the Inquisition in operation in order to root out and banish the Lutheran teachings from the Netherland Provinces. These provinces were all his, as a matter of personal property. The Counts of Holland had become Counts of Zeeland also; by marriage this duplex county had passed into the family of the Counts of Hainault, in Belgium, and again into that of Bavaria; until before the middle of the fifteenth century Jacqueline of Bavaria, the sole heiress of these fair counties, had been compelled to despoil herself in favor of her uncle, the unscrupulous Philip, Duke of Burgundy, who had previously managed to aggrandize himself by the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders. Thus, finally, as the result of honest purchase in some cases or of shameless chicanery in others, and of judicious marriage in still other instances, Philip the Fair, the father of Charles V., had found himself possessed of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, comprising all that territory embraced at present in the kingdoms of the Netherlands and Belgium. Then Philip married the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who was sole heiress of their united crowns of Castile and Arragon. Her son, Charles, with all the rich Netherlands and the Duchy of Burgundy or the half of France at his back, became King of Spain, and at the imperial election of 1519 was made Emperor of Germany.'

In his patrimonial territories Charles was able to pursue more arbitrary courses than in Germany. Here he could not even secure the destruction of Luther. But over the Netherlands he appointed an inquisitor-general, whose function it was, quite apart from the slowly moving ecclesiastical machinery, to ferret out heretics and bring down swift punishment upon their devoted heads. The " Placard," or Decree, announcing this appointment was followed in rapid succession by some twelve others, each more cruel and sanguinary and more genuinely inquisitorial than its predecessors, till the one of 1550 ended the list and capped the climax of iniquity and ferocity. It was never

1 Charles, as an enlightened statesman, "ayant uny toutes ces belles Provinces," says de Wicquefort. "comme en une corps, voulut qu'à l'avenir elles demeurassent dans une mesme masse, sous un seul Prince, et quelles ne fussent point demembrées ny separées, pour quelque cause que ce fust."

("Histoire des Provinces Unies," 1:3, Londres, 1749.) This impress of national unity or homogeneity must have had an immense effect upon the people of these provinces, and have contributed greatly to their union in the struggle for independence against the son of Charles.

improved upon; it was perfect in its wicked ingenuity of persecution. In 1555 Charles V. renounced all his crowns and dignities; the imperial crown went to his brother Ferdinand; in favor of his son, Philip II., he abdicated the throne of Spain, which belonged to him by right of inheritance; and Philip necessarily inherited also the Dukedom of Burgundy with its appanage of the several Netherland Provinces. The new King of Spain and Sovereign Lord of the Netherlands at once reiterated with great emphasis the Placard of 1550, as expressing most fitly and fully the intended policy of the new reign, under the plausible cover of a measure of the previous reign; for which thus the on the whole rather popular Charles was made responsible, instead of his untried yet already quite unpopular son.

But fortunately, or unfortunately, the Placards, in their zeal to save the souls of the inhabitants of the Netherlands at the expense of their bodies, had traversed and trampled upon their civil rights and privileges, stipulated in more than one charter for almost every Province, and solemnly sworn to by both Charles and Philip. Thus all classes of citizens, without respect to creed, made common cause against the common oppressor, culminating finally in a "Petition of Rights" presented formally to the government at Brussels in April, 1566, by four hundred nobles in person. Philip himself had long ago left the uncongenial Netherlands. He was better pleased to seat himself upon the throne of Spain at Madrid, than to remain among the free-spoken and turbulent Dutch and Flemings. He had therefore committed the government of the Netherlands to his sister, a natural daughter of the Emperor Charles-Margaret of Parma, born at Ghent, and thus entitled to hold office in the Provinces. She sent the "Petition of Rights" in great alarm to the King. The answer of Philip was an army of 13,000 foreign troops, under the command of the Duke of Alva, a Spanish grandee of great military fame. He was also noted for his inflexible harshness, and perhaps for this reason was selected by Philip not only to command this army, but also to supersede Margaret in the governorship on his arrival in the country (August, 1567). But both the Governor and the soldiery, being foreign, were upon Netherland soil in direct and deliberate violation of the liberties of the country, a more flagrant violation if possible than any of which the "Petition of Rights" had complained. Remonstrance, petition, every diplomatic device, in fact, having utterly failed to secure redress, under the leadership of William of Orange, who had directed all previous and pacific negotiations, arms were finally taken up early in the year 1568. Four expeditions at once were directed against the territory now ruled by Alva. But success attended only that which attacked the strongholds of the enemy in the North. The city of Groningen was almost secured. Then at Heiligerlee, about twenty