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Uhi.slr.il, BRODHEADS HISTORY <>l nil- SI \i KOIM.WYOKU. ,■,..1 ''\.;^A.'i«-'H.ii \Fu\ .-U V.;vv '^\Q-"...r '\ ^v/ - \ UV,ll.l.,urr IlilK fM;i.l..- II, ..-.■U llM-t ySNANTUCKET , r..l..i|.l.i.i.-l. li-.H", rPAPIRIMtMIN / W ^ <^J i'i~-^M^''^\'"^' ''■•■^aHlivsi,,.:..,, \c..l.-. k IC'CI nn.^lmirk Ku.st,lnr;u'ls Mny ('•'/intat,r i'lunt I Hi HI. "l ■■■■'■ ^""^"U., NEVESINCKS " »'^'".i,il!i?' HISTORY STATE OF NEAV YORK JOHN ROMEYN HRODHEAD. 16 9 — 1664. N E W Y () K K : HARPER A- BROTHERS. PUBLISHERS, 3 2™outh, 128; Their Desti- nation, 129 ; The Mayflower at Cape Cod, 130 ; Compact on board the Mayflower, 131, 132; The Landing of the Pilgrims, 133. CHAPTER V. 1621—1625. The Dutch West India Company incorporated, 134; Its Powers and Duties, 135, 136 ; Its Organization delayed, 137 ; Private Ships sent to New Netherland, 137, 138 ; Parliament jealous of the New England Patent, 139 ; Plymouth Company complains of the Dutch, 140 ; James claims New Netherland, and sends Instruc- tions to Carleton at the Hague, 141 ; Carleton's Memorial to the States General, 142 ; Dutch and English Titles considered, 143, 144 ; Dutch Traders in liong Isl- and Sound, 145; Walloons in Holland, 146, 147; The West India Company or- ganized, 148 ; Takes Possession of New Netherland as a Province, 149 ; First permanent agricultural Colonization, 150 ; Fort Orange built, 151 ; Fort Wilhel- mus, 152 ; Fort Nassau, on the South River, 153 ; Walloons at the Waal-bogt, 154 ; C. J. May first Director of New Netherland, 154 ; Ship of D. P. de Vries seized at Hoorn, 155 ; Dutch Ship arrested at Plymouth, 156 ; Publications of Wassenaar, De Laet, and Purchas, 157; More Colonists sent to New Nether- land, 158 ; Cattle at Nutten Island and Manhattan, 159 ; William Verhulst suc- ceeds May as Director, 159 ; Death of Maurice, 160 ; Of James I., 161 ; Treaty of Southampton, 161 ; Peter Minuit appointed Director General of New Netlier- land, 162. CONTENTS. V \ CHAPTER VI. 1626—1629. ProviniMal Government under Minuit, 163 ; Purchase of iManhattan Island, 164 ; Fort Amsterdam begun, 165 ; Murder of an Indian near the Kolck, 166 ; Descrip- tion of Manhattan, 167; Affairs at Fort Orange, 168; Kriecivebeeck and Barent- sen, 169 ; Colonists removed from Fort Orange and the South River to Manhat- tan, 170 ; The Puritans at New Plymoutli annoyed at the commercial Superior- ity of the Dutch, 171 ; Long Island, or Sewan-hacky, the chief Manufactory of Wampum, 172 ; Correspondence between New Netherland and New Plymouth, 173-175 ; Isaac de Rasieres sent as Ambassador, 176 ; At New Pljinouth, 177; Describes the Puritan Settlement, 178, 179 ; Mutual Trade, 180 ; The English Objections to the Dutch Title, 181 ; Minuit asks for Soldiers from Holland, 181 ; Charles I. favors the Dutch West India Company, 182 ; Revenue of New Neth- erland, 182 ; Population of Manhattan, 183 ; Heyn captures the Spanish Silver Fleet, 184 ; Infatuating Effect upon the West India Company, 185 ; Cost of New Netherland, 186 ; Charter for Patroons proposed, 187 ; Progress of the Coloniza- tion of New England, 188; Royal Charter for Massachusetts Bay, 189; Church organized at Salem, and religious Intolerance established, 190. CHAPTER VII. 1630—1632. The Golden Fleece, 191 ; Dutch Towns, and the feudal System in Holland, 192, 193 ; Charter for Patroons in New Netherland, 194-197 ; Its Effects, 198 ; Char- ter published, 199 ; Godyn and Blommacrt purchase on the South River, 200 ; Van Rensselaer buys on the North River, and begins to colonize Rensselaers- wyck, 201 ; Pauw purchases Pavonia and Staten Island, 202 ; Jealousies among the Directors at Amsterdam, 203 ; Patroonsliips shared, 204 ; Heyes sent to the South River, 205 ; Colony established at Swaanendael, 206 ; No Dutch Colonies on the Connecticut, 207 ; Winthrop founds Boston, 208 ; Extent of the New En- gland Settlements, 209; Connecticut Sachem at Boston, and Winslow, of New Plymouth, visits the Connecticut, 210 ; Lord Warwick's Grant of Connecticut, 211; Great Ship "New Netherland" built at Manhattan, 212; Minuit recalled, 213 ; His Ship arrested at Plymouth, and Negotiation in consequence with the British Government, 214-216; Ship released, 217; Difficulties between the Di- rectors of the West India Company and the Patroons, 218 ; Destruction of Sw-aan- endael by the Savages, 219 ; De Vries sails for the South River, visits the Ruinp. and makes a Peace, 219-221. CHAPTER VIII. 1633—1637. Wouter van Twiller appointed Director General in Place of Minuit, 222 ; Arrive!^ at Manhattan, 223 ; First Clergyman, Schoolmaster, and provincial Officers, 223 ; Revenue and Expenditures, 224 ; De Vries at Fort Nassau, 225 ; Visits Govern- or Harvey in Virginia, 226 ; Pleasant Intercourse opened, 227 ; De Vries at Man- hattan, 228 ; English Ship sails up to Fort Orange, 229 ; Forced to return, 229 ; Vl CONTENTS. Van Twiller"s vexatious Conduct, 231 ; Corssen's Purchase on the Schuylkill. 232 ; Affairs on the Connecticut, 233 ; The West India Company purchases Lands of the Savages there, 234; Commissary Van Curler completes Fort Good Hope, 235 ; Van Twiller's Conduct toward De Vries on his Return to Holland, 236 ; Virginia Ship and New Plymouth Pinnace at Manhattan, 237 ; Massachusetts refuses to join New Plymouth in occupying Connecticut, 238 ; John Oldham's overland Journey, 239 ; Winthrop claims Connecticut, and Van Twiller replies, 239, 240 ; New Plymouth Expedition to the Connecticut, 240 ; Dutch Protest against the Settlers at Windsor, 241 ; Treaty between Massachusetts and the Pequods, 242 ; Affairs at Manhattan, 243 ; Pavonia, Fort Nassau, Fort Orange, and Rensselaerswyck, 244 ; Van Twiller and Domine Bogardus, 245 ; English Complaints against the West India Company, and their Answer, 245, 246; Lubbertus van Dincklagen appointed Schout of New Netherland, 247 ; Difficul- ties between the Patroons and the Directors, 247, 248 ; Surrender of Swaanen- dael to the Company, 249 ; Clayborne's Explorations, 250 ; Motives for the Em- igration of Roman Cathohcs from England, 251 ; Lord Baltimore's Patent for Maryland, 252 ; Saint Mary's founded, 253 ; Harvey deposed and sent to En- gland, 254 ; Fort Nassau seized by a Virginian Party, 254 ; Retaken by the Dutch, and the English Prisoners sent back to Virginia, 255 ; Emigration from Massachusetts to Connecticut, 256 ; English Plantation Board, 257 ; Its Jealousy of the New England Colonists, 258 ; Long Island conveyed to Lord Stirling, 259 ; The New England Patent surrendered, and the younger Winthrop appointed Governor of Connecticut, 259, 260 ; The Dutch Arms torn down at the Kievit's Hook, 260 ; Lion Gardiner at Saybrook, 261 ; William Pynchon at Springfield, 261 ; True European Title to Long Island and Connecticut, 262 ; Domestic Af- fairs at Manhattan and Pavonia, 263, 264 ; Lands taken up on Staten Island and Long Island, 265 ; Van Dincklagen sent back to Holland, 266 ; Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck, 266, 267 ; Van Twiller's private Purchases, 267 ; Bronck's Purchase in West Chester, 268 ; Quotenis, in Narragansett Bay, and Dutchman's Island at the Pequod River, 268 ; Traffic with New England, 269 ; The Pequod War, 269-272 ; Complaints in Holland against Van Twiller and Bogardus, 273 ; William Kieft appointed Director General in Place of Van Tw iller, 274. CHAPTER IX. 1638—1641. Arrival of Kieft at Manhattan, 275 ; Condition of Affairs there, 276 ; New Regula- tions, 277 ; Domine Bogardus retained, 278 ; Rensselaerswyck, Pavonia, and Long Island, 279 ; Jansen Commissary on the South River, 279 ; Swedish West India Company, 280 ; Minuit sails from Sweden, and anchors at Jamestown, 281 ; Arrives in the South River, and purchases Land, 282 ; Kieft protests against him, 283 ; Minuit builds Fort Christina, 284 ; Swedish Ship seized in Holland, 284 ; The States General inquire into the Condition of New Netherland, 285 ; New Articles proposed by the Company, 286 ; By the Patroons, 287 ; Proclama- tion of freer Trade, 288 ; Its Effects, 288, 289 ; De Vries, Kuyter, and Melyn. 289 ; Strangers attracted from New England and Virginia, 290 ; Captain John Underbill, 291 ; Obligations and Privileges of foreign Settlers in New Netherland, 291 ; Grants of Land near Coney Island, Breuckelen, and Deutel Bay, 292 ; Do- CONTENTS. vii rnestic Administration, 292 ; Tribute proposed to be exacted from the Savages, 293 ; New Haven, Stratford, Greenwich, and Hartford, 294 ; Aggressions of the Hartford People, 295 ; The Dutch purchase West Chester Lands, 296 ; James Farrett, Lord Stirling's Agent for Long Island, 297 ; Lion Gardiner at Gardiner's Island, 298 ; English Intruders at Sellout's Bay dislodged, 299 ; Southampton and Southold settled, 300 ; De Vries goes up to Fort Orange, 301, 302 ; Affairs at Beverwyck and Rensselaerswyck, 303-305 ; The Cohooes, 306 ; De Vries' Opinion of the North River, 307 ; Difficulties with the Savages, 307-309 ; The Dutch ordered to arm, 309 ; Expedition against the Raritans, 310 ; The Tappans refuse to pay Tribute, 310; New Charter for Patroons, 311 ; The Reformed Dutch Church established in New Netherland, 312 ; Vriesendael, Hackinsack. and Staten Island, 313 ; Provincial Currency regulated, and Fairs established, 314; The Raritans attack Staten Island, 315; Smits murdered at Deutel Bay, 316; The "Twelve Men" appointed, 317; Kieft urges War, 318; The Twelve Men oppose and avert Hostilities, 319; Swedes on the South River, 319; Do Bogaerdt, Powelson, and Hollaendare, 320 ; Death of Mimiit, 321 ; Lamberton and Cogswell's Expedition from New Haven to the Varken's Kill and the Schuyl- kill, 321, 322; Vexatious Conduct of the Hartford People, 322; Delegates sent to England from Massachusetts and Connecticut, 323 ; Hugh Peters commission- ed to treat with the West India Company, 324 ; Sir William Boswell's Advice to crowd out the Dutch, 324. CHAPTER X. 1642—1643. The Twelve Men again convoked, 325 ; They demand Reforms, 326, 327 ; Kieft's Concessions, 328 ; Dissolves the Board of Twelve Men, 329 ; Expedition against the Weckquaesgeeks, and Treaty at the Bronx River, 330 ; Greenwich submits to the Dutch, 331 ; Roger Williams founds Rhode Island, 332 ; Emigrations from Massachusetts to New Netherland, 333 ; Doughty's Patent for Mespath, 333 ; Throgmorton at Vredeland, 334 ; Anne Hutchinson at "Annie's Hoeck,"33t; Strangers at Manhattan, 335 ; City Hotel for Travellers, 335 ; New Church at Manhattan, 336, 337 ; George Baxter appointed English Secretary, 337 ; New Haven Settlements on the South River broken up, 338 ; The Hartford People and the Dutch, 339 ; Threats in England against the Dutch, 340 ; Beginning of the Civil War in England, 341 ; Van der Donck, Schout Fiscal of Rensselaers- wyck, 341 ; Domine Megapolensis, 342 ; Church at Beverwyck, 343 ; The Jes- uits in Canada, 344 ; Father Jogues captured by the Mohawks, 345 ; Benevolent Efforts of Van Curler, 346 ; Van Voorst murdered by an Indian at Hackinsack, 347 ; The Savages offer an Atonement, 348 ; Kieft demands the Murderer, 348 ; The Mohawks attack the River Indians, 349 ; Public Opinion at Manhattan, 349 ; Kieft resolves on War, 350 ; Warned in vain against his Rashness, 351 ; Mas- sacres at Pavonia and Corlaer's Hook, 352 ; The Long Island Indians attacked, 353 ; The Savages aroused to Vengeance, 354 ; Vriesendael invested, 355 ; Pop- ular Indignation against Kieft, and Proclamation of a Day of fasting, 356 ; Prop- osition to depose Kieft, 356 ; Adriaensen and the Director, 357 ; De Vries and Olfertsen at Rockaway, 358 ; Treaty with the Savages, 359 ; The Indians still discontented, 360. viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. 1643—1644. The United Colonies of New England, 361 ; Kieft addresses the Commissioners, 362 ; Their Reply, 363 ; Murder of Miantonomoh, 364 ; The North River Sav- ages attack a Dutch Boat, 364 ; The Commonalty convoked, 364 ; " Eight Men" chosen, 365 ; Warlike Measures authorized, 365 ; English enrolled, and Under- hill taken into the Dutch Service, 366 ; Annie's Hook and Vredeland destroj^a, 366 ; Lady Moody's Settlement at Gravesend attacked, 367 ; Settlers driven away from Mespath, 367 ; Hackinsack attacked, and Pavonia surprised, 368 ; Alarm at Manhattan, 369 ; The Eight Men again convoked, 370 ; Application to New Haven for Aid, and its Result, 370 ; De Vries' parting Prophecy, 371 ; Let- ter of the Eight Men to the West India Company, 371 ; To the States General, 372 ; Father Jogues at Manhattan, 373 ; Describes its Condition, 374 ; Sails for Europe, 374 ; Church at Beverwyck, 374 ; Missionary zeal of Megapolensis, 375 ; Mercantile Policy of Patroon of Rensselaersvrj^ck, 376 ; Van der Donck's Con- duct, 377 ; Attempts to form a Settlement at Katskill, and is prevented, 378 ; John Printz appointed Governor of New Sweden, 378 ; Arrives at Fort Christina, and builds Fort New Gottenburg, 379 ; De Vries at the South River, 380 ; Plow- den's Claim to New Albion disregarded by Printz and Kieft, 381 ; Lamberton ar- rested by Printz, 382 ; Exploring Expedition from Boston to the South River, 383 ; Failure of the Boston Enterprises, 384 ; The Dutch and the Swedes oppose the English on the South River, 385 ; Expeditions sent to Staten Island and Greenwich, 386 ; Captain Patrick murdered, 387 ; Expedition against the Weck- quaesgeeks, 387 ; Stamford People settle at Heemstede, 387 ; Patent for Heem- stede, 388 ; Hostdity of the Indians, and Expedition sent to Heemstede, 389 ; Atrocities at Manhattan, 389 ; Soldiers supplied from private Ship at Manhattan, 390 ; Underhill's Expedition to Stamford, 390, 391 ; Thanksgiving at Manliattan, 391 ; Peace with West Chester and Long Island Tribes, 392; Fence built at Manhattan, 392 ; HostiUty of the River Tribes, 393 ; Bankruptcy of the West India Company, 393 ; The Eight Men oppose an Excise, 393 ; Kieft's arbitrary Imposition, 394 ; Excise enforced, and the Brewers refuse to pay, 395 ; The Peo- ple side with the Brewers, 396 ; Kieft's Misconduct, 396 ; Expedition to the Nortli, 397; Memorial of the Eight Men to the West India Company, 398-400; Staple Right claimed for Rensselaer's Stein, 400 ; Koorn and Loockermans, 401 ; Koorn summoned to Manhattan, fined, and protests, 401 ; Father Bressani captured by the Mohawks, and ransomed by the Dutch, 402 ; AflTairs of New Netherland con- sidered in Holland, 403 ; Provisional Appointment of Van Dincklagen to succeed Kieft, 404 ; Report of the Company's Bureau of Accounts, 404-406. CHAPTER XII. 1645—1647. End of the Indian War, 407 ; Treaty at Fort Orange, 408 ; General Treaty at Fort Amsterdam, 409 ; Condition of New Netherland, 410 ; Lands purchased on Long Island, 410; Settlement of Vlissingcn, or Flushing, 410 ; Doughty at Mespath. 411 ; Lady Moody's Patent for Gravcsande, or Gravesend, 411 ; Mineral Discov- eries near Fort Orange and anitmg the Raritans, 413 ; Arendt Corssen sent to CONTENTS. IX Holland, and lost on the Way, 412, 413 ; Action of the West India Company re- specting New Netherland, 413 ; Peter Stuyvesant — His early Life, 413 ; Ap- pointed Director in Place of Kieft, and Van Dincklagen Vice Director, 414 ; In- structions for the Provincial Council, 414, 415; New Arrangements, and Stny- vesant's Departure postponed, 416 ; Kieft denies the Right of Appeal to Holland, 417; Denounced by the People, and reproved by Bogardus, 417; Quarrel be- tween the Director and the Domine, 418 ; Restoration of Anne Hutchinson's Grand-daughter, 419 ; Van Curler and Van der Donck, 419 ; Death of Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, and Appointment of Van Slechtenhorst as Director of Rensse- laerswyck, 420 ; Van der Donck's Patent for Colendonck or Yonkers, 421 ; Van Slyck's Patent for Katskill, 421 ; Breuckelen incorporated, 422 ; Father Jogues visits Andiatarocte, and names it " Lac du Saint Sacrement," 422 ; Murder of Jogues by the Mohawks, 423 ; Hudde Commissary on the South River, 424 ; Negotiates with Printz, 425 ; Purchases the Site of Philadelphia, 426 ; Discourt- eous Conduct of Printz, 427 ; New Haven Trading-post on the Paugussett, 428 ; Kieft protests, and negotiates with Eaton, 428 ; With the Commissioners, 429. 430; Instructions of the West India Company, 431 ; Stuyvesant commissioned as Director, and sworn, 432 ; Sails from the Texel, 433 ; Arrives at Manhattan, 433. CHAPTER XIII. 1647—1648. Death of Frederick Henry the Stadtholder, 434 ; Treaty of Munster, and General Peace of Westphalia, 435 ; The House of Burgundy, 436 ; Great Charter of Hol- land, 437 ; Charles V. and Philip II., 437, 438 ; The Reformation in Friesland and Holland, 438 ; Action of the Spanish Government, 439 ; Alliance of the No- bles, and Origin of the " Gueux," 440 ; Iconoclasts, 441 ; Alva in the Nether- lands, 441 ; Council of Blood, and Execution of Egmont and Hoorn, 441 ; Cap- ture of the Brielle, 442 ; The People refuse to pay Alva's Taxes, 442 ; Haerlem and Alckmaer besieged, 442 ; Defense of Leyden, and Foundation of its Univers- ity, 443 ; Pacification of Ghent, 444 ; The Union of Utrecht, 445 ; Dutch Decla- ration of Independence, 446 ; The Dutch a self-governing People, 447 ; Their re- publican System of Administration, 448 ; The States General, 449 ; Council of State, Chamber of Accounts, Stadtholder, and Admiralty, 450 ; The Province of Holland, 451 ; Industrial and democratic Spirit of the Dutch, 452 ; Municipal Governments of Holland, 453 ; Effects of the Dutch System, 454 ; Doctrine of State Rights, 455 ; Social and political Results, 455, 456 ; Prosperity of the Dutch, 456 ; Extensive Commerce, 457 ; Free Trade ; Universal Toleration, 458 ; Foreigners attracted ; Freedom of the Dutch Press, 459 ; Illustrious Men and Artists of the Netherlands, 460 ; Party Spirit ; the Hoeks and Kabbeljaus, 461 ; Economy and Frugality; Hospitality and Benevolence, 462 ; Establishment ot free Schools, 462; Influence of Women, 463 ; Honesty of the Dutch, 463 ; Thrir Firmness and Patriotism, 464. CHAPTER XIV. 1647—1648. t uinmencement of Stuyvesant's Administration, 465 ; Organization of his Coun- cil, 466 ; Police and Revenue Regulations, 466, 467 ; Church in Fort Amster- X CONTENTS. dam, 467 ; Domine Backerus succeeds Bogardus, 468 ; Complaints against Kie(t, 468 ; Dismissed by Stuyvesant, 469 ; Kuyter and Melyn accused by Kieft, 470 ; Convicted and sentenced, 471 ; Right of Appeal again denied, 472 ; Shipwreck of the Princess, and Death of Kieft, Bogardus, and others, 472 ; Escape of Kuy- ter and Melyn, 473 ; Stuyvesant's Concessions to the People, 474 ; The " Nine Men," 474 ; Their Duties and Oath of Office, 475 ; Their Action on Stuyvesant's first Communication, 476 ; Forrester, Lady Stirling's Agent, arrested and ban- ished, 477 ; Correspondence with New England, 478 ; Stuyvesant seizes a Ship at New Haven, 479; Eaton's Retaliation, 480; Stuyvesant's Vindication, 481 ; Insults of the Swedes on the South River, 482 ; The Savages invite the Dutch to build on the Schuylkill, 482 ; Fort Beversrede, 483 ; The Swedes reproved by the Savages, 483 ; Campanius returns to Sweden, 484 ; Plowden again at Man- hattan, 484 ; Van Dincklagen and La Montagne at the South River, 485 ; Vexa- tious Conduct of the Swedes at Passayunk, and Protests of the Dutch, 486 ; Mu nicipal Affairs at Manhattan, or New Amsterdam, 487 ; Recommendations of the Nine Men ; Residence required ; Scotch Merchants, or Peddlers ; " Kermis," or Fair, 489 ; Contraband Trade in Fire-arms, 490 ; Van Slechtenhorst at Rensse- laerswyck, 491 ; Stuyvesant visits Fort Orange, 491 ; Soldiers sent there, 492; Van Slechtenhorst summoned to Fort Amsterdam, 493 ; Megapolensis and Back- erus, 494 ; Popular Discontent at New Amsterdam, 495 ; Delegation to Holland proposed by the Nine Men, 495 ; Correspondence with New England, 496 ; Stuy- vesant's Explanations of the Dutch territorial Rights, 497. CHAPTER XV. 1649—1651. Death of Charles L, 498; Threatened Rupture between England and the Nether- lands, 499 ; Death of Winthrop, and Correspondence with New England, 499 ; The Dutch and other Foreigners forbidden to trade with the New England Sav- ages, 500; Stuyvesant and the Nine Men, 501 ; Proceedings against Van der Donck, 502 ; Case of Kuyter and Melyn, 503 ; Memorial of the Nine Men to the States General, 504 ; Burgher Government demanded ; Remarks and Observa- tions of the Nine Men, 505 ; Vertoogh, or Remonstrance of New Netherland, 506 ; Delegates sent to Holland, 507 ; Domine Backerus succeeded by Megapo- lensis, 508 ; Van Tienhoven sent to Holland as Stuyvesant's Representative, 509 ; Katskill, Claverack, and Weckquaesgeek, 510 ; Lands purchased on the South River, 510, 511 ; The popular Delegates at the Hague, 511 ; Pubhcation of the Vertoogh, 512 ; Letter of the West India Company's Chamber at Amster- dam, 512 ; Measures to promote Emigration, 513 ; Provisional Order for the Government of New Netherland, 514 ; Opposed by the Amsterdam Chamber, 515 ; Domine Grasmeer, 516 ; Municipal Affairs of New Amsterdam, 517 ; Stuy- vesant's Opposition to Reforms, 517; The Director visits Hartford, 518 ; Provis- ional Treaty arranged, 519, 520 ; Dissatisfaction of the Commonalty at New Am- sterdam, 521 ; Affairs at Rensselaerswyck, 522 ; Van der Donck and Van Tien- hoven in Holland, 523 ; Return of Van Tienhoven, 524 ; Melyn on Staten Island. 525 ; Van Dincklagen and Van Schclluync oppressed, 526 ; Gravesend and Heem- stedc support Stuyvesant. 526, 527 ; Expedition from New Haven to the South River defeated, 527 ; Van Slechtenhorst arrested at New Amsterdam, 528 ; CONTENTS. Xi Stuyvesant visits the South River, 529 ; Fort Nassau demolished, and Fort Cas- imir built, 529 ; Dyckman appointed Commissary at Fort Orange in Place of Lab- batie, 530 ; Proposed Exploration of the Katskill Mountains, 531. CHAPTER XVI. 1652—1653. Fiscal Van Dyck superseded, and Van Tienhoven promoted, 533 ; Troubles at Bev- erwT^ck, 533 ; Stuyvesant again at Fort Orange, 534 ; Annexation of Beverwyck to Fort Orange, 535 ; John Baptist van Rensselaer Director, and Gerrit Swart Sellout of Rensselaerswyck, 535 ; Settlement at Atkarkarton, or Esopus, 536 ; Middelburg or Newtown, and Midwout or Flatbush, on Long Island, 536 ; Van Werckhoven's Purchases on Long Island and New Jersey, 537 ; Domine Dris- ius, 537 ; Domine Schaats, 538 ; Opposition of the Amsterdam Chamber to the Provisional Order. 539 ; Burgher Government conceded to Manhattan, 540 ; In- structions for Schout of New Amsterdam, 541 ; The States General recall Stuy- vesant, 541 ; His Recall revoked, 542 ; Proposed Union between England and the Netherlands, 542 ; English Act of Navigation, 543 ; Failure of proposed Treaty, 544 ; Naval War between the Dutch and English, 545 ; Precautions of the States General and the Amsterdam Chamber, 546 ; Maritime Superiority of Manhattan predicted, 547 ; Its Condition and Population, 548 ; Organization of the municipal Government of the City of New Amsterdam, 548, 549 ; Critical Condition of the Province ; Preparations for Defense, 549 ; First City Debt, 550 ; State of Feehng in New England ; Charges against the Dutch, 550, 551 ; Agents sent to New Netherland, and Preparations for War, 552 ; Conduct of the New England Agents, and Propositions of the Dutch, 553 ; Stuyvesant's Reply to the Commissioners, 554 ; Substance of the Charges against him, 555 ; Underhill's seditious Conduct on Long Island, 556 ; Is banished, and goes to Rhode Island, 556 ; Massachusetts at Variance with the Commissioners, 557 ; Prevents a War with New England, 558 ; Fort Good Hope seized by Underbill, 558 ; Stuyvesant sends an Embassy to Virginia, 559 ; Disagrees with the City Authorities of New- Amsterdam, 560 ; Return of Van der Donck ; His " Description of New Nether- land," 561 ; De Sille appointed Counselor, and Van Ruyven Provincial Secretary, 561 ; Domine Drisius sent on an Embassy to Virginia, 562 ; Affairs of Rensse- laerswyck, 562 ; The Mohawks and the French, 563 ; Father Poncet restored, 564 ; Temper of the New England Governments, 564, 565 ; Piracies on Long Island Sound, 565 ; Libelous Pamphlet pubhshed in London, 566 ; Tlie Bound- ary Question in Holland, 567 ; Stuyvesant surrenders the Excise to the City, 568 ; Disaffection among the English on Long Island, 568 ; Meeting of Delegates at New Amsterdam, 569 ; " Landtdag" or Convention called, 570 ; It meets at New- Amsterdam, 571 ; Remonstrance of the Convention, 571 ; Its Character, 572 ; Stuyvesant's Reply, 573 ; Rejoinder of the Convention, 574 ; The Convention dissolved, 575 ; Letter of Burgomasters and Schepens of New Amsterdam to the West India Company, 575 ; Letter from Gravesend, 576 ; Affairs on the South River, 576 ; Departure of Printz, 577 ; John Rising appointed Deputy Governoi of New Sweden, 577. xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. 1654—1655. j New Amsterdam Affairs, 578 ; Precautionary Measures, 579 ; Breuckelen, Amers- Ibort, and Midwout incorporated, 580 ; Church at Midwout or Flatbush, and Dom- ine Polhcmus called, 581 ; Illiberal Treatment of Lutherans at New Amsterdam, 582 ; Cromwell's Expedition against New Netherland, 582 ; Sequestration of Fort Good Hope by Connecticut, 583 ; New Amsterdam put in a State of Defense, 584 ; Warlike Preparations in New England, 585 ; Treaty of Peace between En- gland and Holland, and Countermand of hostile Orders, 586 ; Thanksgiving in New Netherland, 587 ; Letters of the Company to Stuyvesant and to the City Authorities, 587; Grant of a City Hall and Seal to New Amsterdam, 588 ; Kuy- ter murdered, and Van Tienhoven continued as City Schout, 588 ; Ferry at Man- hattan regulated, 589 ; War Tax laid ; Excise resumed by Stuyvesant, 590 ; Troubles at Beverwyck, 591 ; Father Le Moyne discovers the Salt Springs at Onondaga, 592 ; Rising at the South River, 593 ; Captures Fort Casimir, and names it Fort Trinity, 593 ; Swedish Ship seized at Manhattan, 594 ; English Settlements at West Chester and Oyster Bay, 595 ; Stuyvesant visits Lady Moody at Gravesend, 596 ; Delivers Seal and Coat of Arms to Burgomasters at New Amsterdam, 596 ; Sails for the West Indies, 597 ; Baxter, Hubbard, and Grover at Gravesend, 597 ; Protest against the Settlers at West Chester, 598 ; De Decker appointed Commissary at Fort Orange in Place of Dyckman, 599 ; Affairs at Gravesend, 599 ; The Boundary Question in Holland, 600 ; Stuyvesant ordered to recover Fort Casimir, 601 ; Letter of West India Company to Burgo- masters of New Amsterdam, 602 ; Stuyvesant returns from the West Indies, 603 ; Expedition to the South River, 604 ; Capitulation of the Swedes, 605 ; Es- tablishment of the Dutch Power on the South River, 606 ; Indian Invasion oi New Amsterdam, 607 ; Hoboken, Pavonia, and Staten Island laid waste ; Eso- pus deserted, 607 ; Measures for Defense ; Ransom of Prisoners, 608 ; Jacqnet appointed Vice Director on the South River, 609 ; Assistance asked from Hol- land, and Precautions against the Savages proposed, 610 ; Stuyvesant prohibits New Year and May Day Sports, 611 ; Father Le Moyne at Beverwyck, 611 ; New Alliance between the Dutch and the Mohawks, 611 ; Chaumonot and Dablon : Jesuit Chapel at Onondaga, 612. CHAPTER XVIII. 1656—1658. Proclamation to form Villages, 613 ; Stuyvesant and the Municipal Government of New Amsterdam, 613; Religious Affairs in New Netherland, 614-616; Procla- mation against unauthorized Conventicles, 617 ; Disapproved by the West India Company, 617 ; Expedition sent to West Chester, 618 ; Oostdorp or West Ches- ter, and Rustdorp or Jamaica incorporated, 619 ; Baxter escapes to New En- gland, 620 ; Swedish Ship seized at the South River, 620 ; Ratification of the Hart- ford Treaty by the States General, 621 ; Complaints of the Swedish Government, 622 ; Van Tienhoven dismissed from public Service, 622 ; Survey and Population of New Amsterdam, 623 ; Troubles at Beverwyck about the Excise, 623 ; Van Rensselaer fined and ordered to give Bonds, 624 ; New Church at Beverwyck, 024, CONTENTS Xiii ■ 625 ; La Montagne appointed Vice Director at Fort Orange in Place of De Decker, 625 ; Unsatisfactory Correspondence with New England, 625 ; Lutherans at New Amsterdam, and Baptists at Flushing, 626 ; Affairs at Oostdorp, 627 ; Great and Small Burgher Right estabUshed at New Amsterdam, 628, 629 ; The West India Company conveys Fort Casimir and the adjacent Territor>' to the City of Am- sterdam, 630 ; Colony of New Amstel ; Alrichs appointed Director, 630, 631 ; Transfer of Fort Casimir, and Organization of Colony of New Amstel, 632 ; Fort Christina named Altona, and Jacquet succeeded by Hudde, 633 ; Domine Weliu& and Church at New Amstel, 633 ; Cromwell's Letter to the English on Long Island, 634 ; Lutheran Clergyman at New Amsterdam, 635 ; The People called Quakers, 635 ; Penal Laws of Massachusetts, 635 ; Liberality of Rhode Island, 636 ; Quakers at New Amsterdam, 636 ; Proclamation against Quakers, 637 ; Remonstrance of Flushing, 637; Its Charter modified, 638 ; Persecution of Quak- ers, 638, 639 ; Nomination of Magistrates allowed to New Amsterdam, 640 ; For- eigners ; Municipal Affairs ; Latin School, 640, 641 ; New Haerlem and Staten Island, 641 ; Bergen and Gamoenepa, or Coimnunipa, 642 ; The West India Com- pany enjoins religious Moderation, 642, 643 ; Jesuit Mission at Onondaga ; Saint Mary's of Genentaha, 644 ; Le Moyne at New .\msterdam, 645 ; Commerce be- tween New Netherland and Canada, 646 ; Abandonment of the French Settle- ment at Onondaga, 646 ; Outrages of the Indians at Esopus, 647 ; Stuyvesant's Conference with the Esopus Savages, 648 ; Vdlage laid out at Esopus, 649 ; Jer- emias Van Rensselaer Director of Rensselaerswyck, 649 ; Mohawks at Fort Or- ange, 650 ; Dirck Smit Commandant at Esopus, 651 ; Stuyvesant visits Altona, 651 ; Willem Beeckman appointed Vice Director on the South River, 652 ; Af- fairs at New Amstel, 653; Death of Cromwell, and Downfall of the Protector- ate, 653. CHAPTER XIX. 1659—1660. Territorial Claims of Massachusetts, 654 ; Exploring Party refused a Passage up the North River, 655 ; The West India Company allows New Netherland a For- eign Trade, 656 ; Curtius Latin Schoolmaster at New Amsterdam, 656 ; Liber- ality in Religion enjoined, 656 ; Hermanus Blom caUed to Esopus, 657 ; Fresh Troubles with the Savages, 658 ; Delegation from Beverwyck to the Mohawks at Caughnawaga, 659 ; Expedition from New Amsterdam to Esopus, 660 ; Affairs at New Amstel, 661 ; Copper Mine at Minnisinck, 662 ; Beeckman purchases near Cape Hinlopen, 663 ; Designs of the Maryland Government, 663 ; Utie at New Amstel, 664 ; Conference with the Dutch Officers, 665 ; Heerman's and Waldron's Embassy to Maryland, 666 ; Negotiations with Governor Fendall, 667-669 ; Death of Domine Welius and of Director Alrichs, 670 ; Southampton, Easthampton, Huntington, and Setauket, on Long Island, 671 ; Letter of Com- missioners to Stuyvesant in favor of the Massachusetts Claim, 672 ; Stuyvesant's Reply, 673 ; His Dispatches to the Company, 674 ; Tonneman Schout of New Amsterdam ; Second Survey of the City, 674 ; New Haerlem incorporated, 674 ; Treaty with the Long Island and other Indians, 675 ; War against the Esopus Savages, 676 ; Stuyvesant refuses to organize a Court at Esopus, 677 ; Opposes the Employment of the Mohawks, 677 ; Conference and Treaty with the Esopus Indians, 678; " Bosch-loopers" at Fort Orange, 679; Stuyvesant's Conference Xiv CONTENTS. with the Senecas, 679 ; Domine Blom settled at Esopus, 680 ; Domine Selyns ..t Breuckelen and the Director's Bouwery, 680, 681 ; Lutherans at Beverwyck, 681 ; Hinoyossa succeeds Alrichs at New Amstel, 682; Treaty between New Netherland and Virginia, 683 ; Sir Henry Moody's Embassy to Manhattan, 683 ; j Berkeley's Correspondence with Stuyvesant, 684 ; Restoration of Charles II., 684 ; Lord Baltimore and the West India Company, 685 ; The Company's Me- morial to the States General, 686 ; English Council for Foreign Plantations, 686. CHAPTER XX. 1661—1664. English Jealousy of the Dutch, 687 ; Liberal Conditions offered by the West India Company to EngUsh Emigrants to New Netherland, 688 ; Stuyvesant again per- secutes Quakers, 689 ; Charter of Wiltwyck, or Wildwyck, at Esopus ; Roelof Swartwout Schout, 690; Purchase of " Schonowe," or Schenectady Flats, 691 ; Bergen incorporated; Tielman van Vleeck Schout, 691, 692; Staten Island; Domine Drisius preaches there in French, 692 ; New Utrecht and Boswyck, or Bushwick, incorporated, 693 ; The " Five Dutch Towns," 693 ; Affairs at New Amsterdam ; a Mint contemplated ; Curtius succeeded by Luyck ; Reputation of the Latin School, 694 ; Salt-works on Coney Island, 694 ; Connecticut petitions the King for a Charter, 695 ; Winthrop sails from New Amsterdam, 695 ; Pro- posed Puritan Settlement in New Netherland ; Stuyvesant's Concessions, 696 ; Calvert on the South River, 697 ; Mennonists propose to colonize the Horekill, 698 ; Singular Articles of Association, 698, 699 ; Plockhoy, their Leader, 699 ; Beeckman and Hinoyossa, 699 ; Sir George Downing, the British Ambassador at the Hague, 700 ; Lord Baltimore's and Lord Stirling's Claims, 701 ; Convention between the United Provinces and Great Britain, 701 ; Berkeley and Winthrop in London ; Royal Charter for Connecticut, 702 ; Encroaching Claims of the Con- necticut Court, 703 ; West Chester and Long Island Towns annexed, 703 ; Le Moyne again among the Iroquois, 704 ; The Mohawks on the Kennebeck, 704 ; Governor Breedon's Complaints, and Stuyvesant's Interposition, 704 ; Tracy Viceroy of Canada, 705 ; Progress of Quakerism on Long Island, 705 ; Banish- ment of Bowne, 706; The West India Company enjoins Toleration, and Perse- cution ceases, 707 ; Terms offered to Puritans desiring to settle themselves on the Raritan, 708 ; Connecticut enforces its Claims of Jurisdiction, 709 ; Earth- quake, 709 ; Small-pox at Beverwyck, and non-intercourse Regulations of Con- necticut, 710 ; New Village at Esopus ; " Ronduit" on the Kill, 710 ; Wiltwyck surprised by the Savages, 711 ; Expedition sent from New Amsterdam, 712 ; In- vasion of the Esopus Country, and Destruction of Indian Forts on the Shawan- gunk Kill, 712, 713 ; Party sent to the Sager's Kill, 713, 714 ; The South River ceded to the City of Amsterdam, 714-716 ; Calvert at New Amstel and Altona, 717; Hinoyossa and Beeckman, 717; Stuyvesant visits Boston, and negotiates with the Commissioners, 718 ; Difficulties on Long Island, 719 ; Dutch Commis- sioners sent to Hartford, 720 ; Unsatisfactory Negotiation, 721 ; Act of Connecti- cut respecting the West Chester and Long Island Towns, 722 ; Convention called at New Amsterdam, 722 ; Remonstrance to the West India Company, 723 ; Names of English Villages on Long Island changed, 723; Stuyvesant surrenders them and West Chester to Connecticut, 723 ; English Party on the Raritan ; Purchase of the Nevesinck Lands, 724 ; Baxter and Scott in London, 725 ; Scott on Long CONTENTS. XV Island, 726 ; Combination of English Villages ; Scott chosen President, 726 ; Con ditional Arrangement at Jamaica, 727 ; Agreement between Stuyvesant and Scott, 728 ; General Provincial Assembly at New Amsterdam, 729 ; Charter of the West India Company explained and confirmed by the States General, 730 ; Letters to the Towns, 730 ; Arrival of Huguenots, 730 ; Treaty of Peace with the Esopus Savages, 731 ; Beeckman Commissary at Esopus, 732 ; Settlement at Schaen- hechstede, or Schenectady, 732 ; The Mohawks and the Abenaquis, 732 ; Ravages of the Mahicans, and Alarm at Fort Orange, 733 ; Winthrop's Proceedings on Long Island, 734 ; Stuyvesant still hopeful, 734 ; Royal Patent to the Duke of York and Albany, 735 ; Royal Commissioners, 736 ; Colonel Richard Nicolls dis- patched with a Squadron to surprise New Netherland, 736 ; Grant of New Jersey, 736 ; Preparations to defend New Amsterdam, 736 ; Stuyvesant goes to Fort Or- ange, 737 ; Royal Commissioners at Boston, 737 ; Squadron anchors in Nyack Bay, 738; Manhattan sunmioned to surrender, 739 ; Stuyvesant tears Nicolls's Letter, 739 ; Ships anchor before Fort Amsterdam, 740 ; Condition of the City, 741 ; Capitulation agreed to, 742 ; Surrender of New Amsterdam, 742 ; Nicolls pro- claimed Governor; his opinion of the City called "New York," 743 ; Surrender of Fort Orange ; named Fort Albany, 744 ; Reduction of the South River, 744 ; New York, Albania, and Yorkshire named, 745 ; Review ; Character and Influ- ence of the Founders of New York, 745-750. APPENDIX. Note A Page 751 Note B 752 Note C 753 Note D 753 Note E 754 Note F 755 Note G 755 Note H 756 Note 1 757 Note K 758 Note L 758 Note M 759 Note N 760 Note 760 Note P 760 Note Q 761 N ote R 76 1 Xote S 762 General Index 765 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. CHAPTER I. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, moment- chap. i. ous events, which had been agitating Europe, led the way " ~ to the permanent colonization of the northern regions of »'<>" America. The art of printing had gradually diffused the learning of the cloister through the marts of commerce ; a venerable but abused faith no longer shackled emanci- pated mind ; a recent inductive philosophy was teaching mankind to seek the fruits of careful experiment ; and an irrepressible spirit of adventure, growing with the prog- ress of knowledge, prompted enterprise in the New World which the genius of Columbus had given to the Old. The immortal Genoese, who, in those late years fore- 1492. told at Rome, had verified the sublime prophecy of Sene- ca, and made the ocean reveal the long-mysterious earth beyond the furthest Tliule, had worked out his grand dem- onstration in the service of Spain. By her the splendid prize was claimed. But Portugal, having already ex- plored the Azores, boldly asserted a superior right. The question was referred to the Pope ; and Alexander the Papai dona- . . tion of the Sixth decided that the sovereigns of Spain should hold, New worid 1 111 i'" Spain. as a gift in perpetuity, all the heathen lands found or 1493. to be discovered to the west of a meridian, one hundred *^^ ***>' leagues westward of the Azores.. The apostolic decree did 2 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. not Satisfy Portugal ; and it was agreed that the line of partition should be advanced two hundred and seventy leagues further to the west. Still, nearly all the New World remained actually included in the papal donation to Spain.* But the Pontiff's sweeping grant was not universally respected. Leaving Spain and Portugal to push their con- Engiish quests in the rich and sultry regions of the south, England discoveries, and Francc commenced an early rivalry in exploring the rugged and picturesque territories of the north. Disre- garding the edict of the Vatican, almost simultaneously they began their grand career of transatlantic enterprise. Cabot. While the Cabots, under commissions of Henry the Sev- enth, after discovering Newfoundland, sailed along the 1497-8, continent, from Labrador to the parallel of Gibraltar, and, 1517. in a succeeding reign, perhaps entered the Arctic Seaa westward of Greenland, the fishermen of Normandy visit- 1504. ed Cape Breton, and made rude charts of the great gulf 1506. within ; and Verazzano, under a commission of Francis verazzano. ^I^g First, coasting uortliward from the Carolinas, explored, 1524. with his boat, the "most beautiful" Bay of New York,i and anchored awhile in the "very excellent harbor" of Newport. But, though plans of colonization were sug- gested in England and France, permanent occupation was * Hazard's Ili.storical Collections, i., 3-6 ; Chalmers's Political Annals, 10 ; llcrrera, i., 2, 10; Irving's Columbus, i., 185-200; Prescott's Ferd. and Isab., ii., 116, 174, 181 ; Tliorne, in Ilakluyt's " Divers Voyages," &c., 43-47, reprinted by the llakluyt Society of London, 1850. t Verazzano thus describes the Narrows, and the Bay of New York : " After proceed- ing one hundred leagues, we found a very pleasant situation among some steep hills, through which a very large river, deep at its mouth, forced its way to the sea. From thii sea to tlie estuary of the river, any ship heavily laden might pass, with the help of iho tide, which rises eight feet. But as we were riding at anchor in a good berth, we would not venture up in our vessel, without a knowledge of the mouth ; therefore we took tho boat, and entering the river, we found the country on its banks well peopled, the inhab- itants not difl'ering much from the others, being dressed out with the feathers of birds of various colors. They came toward us with evident delight, raising loud shouts of admi- ration, and showing us where we could most securely land with our boat. We passed up this river about half a league, when we found it formed a most beautiful lake, three leagues in circuit, upon which they were rowing thirty or more of their small boats, from one shore to the other, filled with multitudes who came to see us. All of a sudden, as is wont to happen to navigators, a violent contrary wind blew in from the sea, and forced u^ to return to our ship, greatly regretting to leave this region, which seemed so commodious and delightful, and which we supposed must also contain great riches, as the hills showed many indications of minerals."— Letter to King Francis I., of July 8, 1524, translated by Mr. Cogswell, in N. Y. H. S. Coll., i. (second series), 45, 46. THE FRENCH IN CANADA. 3 delayed. Not a solitary emigrant established his home chap. i. along all the indented line of coast.* Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner of Saint Malo, canier in following, a few years after Verazzano's adventurous voy- age, discovered the mouth of the " Crreat River of Cana- 1534. da." The next year, returning with three well-fitted ves- sels, Cartier passed westward of Newfoundland on the festival of Saint Lawrence, and, in honor of the martyr, 153o. gave his name to the noble gulf which stretched beyond. '" ^"eust Pursuing his way up the great river, and holding friendly intercourse with the Hurons and Algonquins along its banks, the enterprising explorer visited the island of Hochelaga, the fertile hill on which, he named " Mont 3 October. Real." After wintering his ships in the little river just north of the present city of Quebec, Cartier solemnly erect- 1536. ed a cross, and, claiming the surrounding regions as the ^ ^^^' rightful possessions of his sovereign king, Francis I., set sail once more for Saint Malo. Cartier's reports on his return to France, though they did not arouse a general spirit of enterprise among his countrymen, stimulated Francois de la Roque, lord of Ro- Robcrvai. berval, a nobleman of Picardy, to obtain from the king a 1540. patent as viceroy over the newly-discovered French ter- ^^-"^""^i- ritories on the Saint Lawrence. With Roberval was as- sociated Cartier, as captain and pilot-in-chief. Return- ly October. ing to the Saint Lawrence, Cartier built a rude fort, not far from the site of Quebec, and thus gave to his country the pre-eminence of having erected the first European post 1541. * Hazard, i., 9, 10 ; Chalmers, 4, 7, 8 ; Holmes's Annals, i., 13-54 ; Bancroft, i., 8-17, 75,76; Biddle'.s "Memoir of Cabot ;" C. Robinson'.s "Voyages to America;" Hakluyt's " Divers Voyages." In 1501, Cortereal, a Portuguese, visited Newfoundland and Labra- dor, but his voyages produced no practical results. Vcra7.7ano's Letter to King Francis I., of July 8, 1524, giving an account of his discoveries, is the earliest original description now extant, of the Atlantic coa.st of the T/nited States. Translations of that letter are in N. Y. II. S. Collections, i., 45-00 (from Ramusio), and in i. (second series), 39-G7 (from the Magliabecchian MSS.). In the llakluyt Society's reprint of " Hakluyt's Divers Voyages," the translation of Veraz/.ano's letter (from Ramusio) is accompanied by a fac-simile of the rare map which Michael Lock, of London, made and dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney, in \aSi. This map, it appears, was constructed partly from "an old e.xccllent mappe," which Vcrazzano himself had given to King Henry VIH., and which, when llakluyt pub- lished his work (in 1582), was "yet in the custodie of Master Locke." The name by which the New World is now unworthily known, was not, at the time of Verazzano's voyage, applied to the Northern Continent ; at all events. Verazzano does not use the term " America" in his letter. 4 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. in the northern territory of America. But divided author- ity frustrated the discordant enterprise ; and, for a long '^' generation, no further American discoveries were prose- cuted by the subjects of France.* Frobisiier's Forty ycars after Cartier first ascended the Saint Law- rence, Martin Frobisher, "one of the boldest men who ever ventured upon the ocean," encouraged by the favor of Eliz- abeth to search for a northwest passage to China, made his 1576. way to a group of islands off the coast of Labrador. A few stones brought back to London, from the desolate abode of the Esquimaux, were supposed to contain gold ; 1577-8. and new expeditions were sent to the imaginary Dorado. But Frobisher's voyages were all unsuccessful. While credulous avarice was signally disappointed, the coasts of North America remained unexplored by the English.! With more definite purpose, and with sounder views, patenf^ Sir Humphrey Grilbert, a knight of Devonshire, obtained 1578. a royal patent, authorizing him to discover and occupy iijune. ^j^y j-ernote, heathen, and barbarous lands, "not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people." Gilbert's purpose was to begin that actual occupation of American territory which England had entirely neglected during the eighty years that followed the voyage of Cabot. The pat- ent gave Grilbert abundant powers ; but various obstacles postponed the execution of his design.^ Meanwhile, Eliz- abeth was stoutly denying the exclusive pretensions of 1580. Spain to the New World, in virtue of first visitation, and of the Pope's donation, and was distinctly affirming the .v4'sioii^°he principle that discovery and prescription, unless accom- ^\nm\m. panied by possession, are of no avail.§ Thus the Queen * Hakluyt, iii., 250-297 ; Hazard, i., 19-21 ; Chalmers, 81, 82 ; Bancroft, i., 19-24. t Hakluyt, iii., 29-.'i2, 47-129 ; Purchas, v., 811 ; Bancroft, i., 81-(;6 ; Rundall's Narra- tives, &c., 9-34, published by the Hakluyt Society, 1849. t Hazard, i., 24-2H ; Bancroft, i., 88, 89. 4 " PriEterea illam non intelligcre, cur sui ct aliorum Priuciinim .subditi ab Indiis pro- hibeantur, quas Hispanici juris esse persuaderc sibi non posset ex Ponlificis Romani do- natione, in quo priBro(,'ativam in ejusmodi caussis agnovit nuUam, nedum auctoritatcm ut Principes obligaret, qui nuUani ei obedientiam debent ; aut Ili.spanum novn illo orbe quasi mfeudaret, et iiossessione inve.stirct. Nee alio quopiam jure quam quod Hispani hinc illinc appulerint, casulas posuerint, lluinen aut Promontorium denominavcrint, qus proprietateni acquirere non possunt. Ut hiee rei aliens; donatio (juw ex jure nihili est, et imaginaria hsec proprietas obstare non debeat, quo minus celeri Principes commercia in illis regionibus exerceant, et colonias ubi Hispani non incolunt, jure gentium nequaquain violate, dedu- THE ENGLISH IN VIRGINIA. 5 of England, while she refused to recognize the double chap. i. Spanish title by exploration and investiture, at the same time virtually renounced any English claim founded sole- ly upon Cabot's voyage. After a few year's delay, Grilbert, aided by the resources of his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, equipped an ex- Gubcn at pedition, and sailed directly to Newfoundland, where, for land. the first time, he set up the arms of England and pro- 1583. claimed the queen. On his return voyage, the intrepid '^ ^"S"*'*- adventurer perished at sea. But the English right to the 9 septemb. island " first seen" by Cabot, was now formally published to the world " by the voice of a herald."* The untimely fate of his kinsman did not dishearten Raleigh, who readily procured from Elizabeth, whose fa- ^^f^^ jf^J'ent vorite he had become, a new patent to discover and occu- py any remote, heathen, and barbarous lands, "not act- 1584. ually possessed of any Christian prince, nor inhabited by ^"' '^*'"'='*- Christian people." Up to this time the English had lim- ited their views to the bleak regions near the fisheries at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. Raleigh's enterprise was now directed to a more genial climate. Two vessels were soon dispatched toward Florida, under the com- 27 April. mand of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. Sailing by the circuitous route of the Canaries and the West Indies, they safely reached the island of Wocockon, at the Ocra- coke inlet, in North Carolina, where they took formal pos- 13 July. session of the country in behalf of their sovereign. On their return to England, the adventurers made such glow- ing reports of the regions they had visited, that Elizabeth irave to the wilderness the name of Virginia, to commem- '^''■ginia o ' named. orate its occupation in the reign of a maiden queen. t But the time for permanent English settlements beyond coioni/.a- the Atlantic had not yet fully come. Ihe colonists whom tempted, Raleigh sent to the island of Roanoke in 1585, under 1585. cant, quum praescriptio sine possessione haud valeat." — Camden, Rerum Ang. et Hib. Reg. Eli/.. Annales, 1580, edit. Hearne, 1717, p. 360 * "Regionem illam [Newfoundland] Anglici juris esse, voce prsBconis publicasset." —Camden, Annales Eliz., 1583, p. 402 ; Hakluyt, i., 679-699, iii., 143-166 ; Purchas, iii., 608 ; Hazard, i., 32 ; Bancroft, i., 90, 91. t Hazard, i., 33-38 ; Hakluyt, iii., 246-251 ; Bancroft, i., 92-95; Chalmers, 4, 9. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. 1587. 1590. and aban- doned. 1603. 1618. Raleigh's fate. 1792. Gosnold's voyage. 1602. 26 March. Grrenville and Lane, returned the next year, dispirited, to ■ England. A second expedition, dispatched in 1587, un- der John White, to found " the borough of Raleigh, in Virginia," stopped short of the unexplored Chesapeake, whither it was bound, and once more occupied Roanoke. In 1590, the unfortunate emigrants had wholly disappear- ed ; and, with their extinction, all immediate attempts to establish an English colony in Virginia were abandoned.* Its name alone survived. After impoverishing himself in unsuccessful efforts to add an effective American planta- tion to his native kingdom, the magnanimous patriot was consigned, under an unjust judgment, to a lingering im- prisonment in the Tower of London ; to be followed, after the lapse of fifteen years, by a still more iniquitous exe- cution. Yet, returning justice has fully vindicated Ra- leigh's fame ; and nearly two centuries after his death, the State of North Carolina gratefully named its capital after that extraordinary man, " who united in himself as many kinds of glory as were ever combined in an indi- vidual."t The reign of Elizabeth did not terminate before anoth- er step had been taken in the path of American adventure. Shakspeare's liberal-minded patron, the Earl of South- ampton, "having well weighed the greatness and good- ness of the cause," contributed largely to fit out a vessel under the command of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew G^ilbert, to discover a "convenient place for a new colony" to be sent to North America. Early in 1602, Gosnold sailed from Falmouth in a Dart- mouth bark, named the Concord, " holding a course for the north part of Virginia." Rejecting the usual circui- tous route by the Canaries and the West Indies, Grosnold, after being driven by an unfavorable wind " as far south- ward as the Azores," boldly steered his small vessel di- * Hazard, i., 3»-45 : Ihikluyt, iii., 251-265, 280-295 ; Chalmers, r>\i, 515 ; Uancroa, i.. 95-108. The attention of Europe was attracted, in 1590, to the characteristics of the North American savages, by the beautiful plates with which Theodoras de Bry, of Frankfort, illustrated his collections of " Voyages." These were engraved from the sketches made, under Raleigh's direction, by the draughtsman Wythe, who accompanied Lane in 1585. t Bancroft, i.. 111. GOSNOLD AT CAPE COD. 7 rectly across the Atlantic, by which he made the voyage chap. i. "shorter than heretofore by five hundred leasmes."* In ~ seven weeks the Concord safely made the land, about the ^_^ j^^^ ' latitude of 43°, in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Here the adventurers were visited by several Indians in a French-built shallop, with "mast and sail, iron grapples, and kettles of copper." From their explana- tions, it appeared that some French vessels from the Basque Provinces " had fished and traded at this place." But seeing no good harbor, (iosnold stood again to sea south- wardly, and soon " found himself imbayed with a mighty headland." Here he went ashore in his shallop, while his men, during the six hours he was absent, caught so many " excellent codfish, that they were compelled to throw numbers of them overboard again." Naming this head- land " Cape Cod" — a designation which it has ever since cape cod 1/^11 11 lie 1 iliscovered retained — Cxosnold coasted to the southward as far as the and named mouth of Buzzard's Bay, where he prepared to plant a colony on the westernmost island, which was called " Eliz- 28 May. abeth," in honor of the queen. Three weeks were spent in building a house, where G-osnold proposed to remain during the winter, with eleven of his men, and mean- while send the Concord home, in charge of Gilbert, " for new and better preparations." But his men, filled with " a covetous conceit of the unlooked-for merchandise" which had rewarded their traffic with the Indians, " would not by any means be treated with to tarry behind the ship;" and Gosnold returned to England, after an absence of five months, with the most favorable reports of "theasjuiy. benefit of a plantation in those parts. "t Elizabeth's timid successor now sat on the throne of 1603. Great Britain. At the time of James's accession, Spain Ap^Mfon was the only European nation that possessed any fixed ""^ ■'^'"*' "" settlements in all the northern continent to which Colum- * Smith's Hist, of Virginia, i., 105. t "History of Travail into Virginia Britannia," by William Strachey, 153-158; Pur- clias, iv., 1647; Smith's Hist, of Virginia, i., 105-108. Strachey's interesting work haa just been published (1850) for the first time, from the original MS. in the British Museum, by the Hakluyt Society S HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. bus had led the way, more than a century before. South of the Saint Lawrence, not a foot of American territory had yet been permanently occupied by England or France. But the time was now near at hand when these rival na- tions were to commence a long-enduring struggle for ul- timate dominion over vast regions far across the sea. Ra- leigh's enterprises, and G-osnold's successful voyage, had given a strong impulse to the national spirit of Grreat Britain ; for the development of which the anticipated termination of hostilities with Spain, in consequence of James's accession to the throne, was soon to offer the most favorable opportunities. The south of England already felt the pressure of a redundant population ; and English adventurers foresaw that they would no longer be allow- ed to despoil, at pleasure, their enemies' rich West India possessions. Enterprise must soon pursue more honest paths, and commerce and colonization must supplant pi- racy and rapine. The thoughts of the intelligent were naturally turned toward the North American Continent, where, between Mexico and Florida and the mouth of the Saint Lawrence, not a solitary European family was yet established. Among the foremost of these intelligent men, and the one to whom " England is more indebted for its American possessions than to any man of that age,"* was Richard thc distinguished historian of maritime enterprise, Richard Hakluytthe » • i iiistorian. Hakluyt, a prebendary of Saint Augustine's at Bristol, and afterward of Saint Peter's at Westminster. Influenced by his enlightened zeal, some Bristol merchants fitted out two small vessels, manned with experienced crews, several of whom had accompanied Gosnold the year before ; and, a 10 Apru. few days after the death of the queen, dispatched them r^age. from Milford Haven, under the command of Martin Pring, to explore the northern coasts of Virginia. Falling in with the land near Penobscot Bay, Pring coasted southerly along the mouths of the Kennebeck, Saco, and Piscataqua, un- til he reached thc waters of Massachusetts Bay. After 2 October, an absencc of six months, he returned to England, with * Robertson, ix. WEYMOUTH IN MAINE. 9 a valuable cargo of sassafras, and a birch bark canoe, as a chap. i. specimen of the ingenuity of the native savages.* Pring's voyage stimulated afresh the aw^akened enter- prise of England. James had, meanwhile, signalized his accession to the British throne by declaring himself at i'eace wau •'. ^ Spain. peace " with all the princes of Christendom," and by re- 2^ June, calling all letters of marque and reprisal against the Span- iards.! This step was followed the next year by a formal treaty with Spain, which by degrees repressed the preda- 1604. tory expeditions that English mariners had so long carried " " ** on against the American possessions of their recent foes. The northern voyage across the Atlantic was now divested of its terrors, and experience had abundantly demonstrated its advantages over the more circuitous route by the West Indies. The liberal Earl of Southampton, " concurrent the second time in a new survey and dispatch," in concert wey- with his brother-in-law, Lord Arundel, of Wardour, fitted voyage. out a ship, in which Captain G-eorge Weymouth was dis- patched from the Downs to visit the coast of Maine. In KjOo. six weeks Weymouth found himself near the shoals of Nan- ^^ '^'•"■(•h tucket; whence, running northward about fifty leagues, jsMay. ho landed upon an island between the Penobscot and the Kennebeck, which he named Saint George. Pursuing " his search sixty miles up the most excellent and bene- ficial river of Sacadehoc," which he found " capable of shipping for traffic of the greatest burden," Weymouth set up a cross, and took possession in the name of the king. After four months absence, Weymouth returned to En-isJ'iiy gland, bringing with him five native savages, whom he had decoyed on board his ship. Three of these were im- mediately "seized upon" by Sir Ferdinando G-orges, the governor of Plymouth, who afterward declared that " this accident must be acknowledged the means, under God, of putting on foot and giving life to all our plantations."^ * Purchas, iv., 1654. t Rymer, Fcdcra, xvi., 516, t Sir F. Gorges, " Brief Narration," y therefore "all embarked in this * Sir John Popham dioj on the 10th of June, 1607. lie was a " huge, heavy, ugly man," and in his younger days had actually been a highwayman. In 1592 he was made Chief Justice of England, and in 100."? presided at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, whom ho sentenced to death. Lord Campbell, in his biography of Popham, entirely omits any reference to his early /.eal in the cause of American discovery and colonization, which — as much as any other incident in his life — gives lustre to his ftme. — Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, i., 226. NEW VIRGINIA CHARTER OF 1609. 15 new-arrived ship, and in the new pinnace, the Virginia, chap, i and set sail for England." Thus ended the Northern En- gUsh colony upon the Sagadahoc. On the return of the faultcring emigrants to England, their disappointed prin- t^e'c"oTo^y cipals, vexed with their pusillanimity, desisted for " a long time after" from any further attempts at American colo- 1608 nization ; though a few vessels were still annually employ- \q\^ ed in the prosperous fisheries, and in trafficking with the Indians on the coast of Maine.* The year after the failure of the Plymouth Company's gfnia"chart^ colony at the Kennebeck, the London Company obtained ®''; P^^q a more ample charter from the king, by which the affairs 23 May." of Virginia were placed upon a much better footing. The new grant essentially modified the first charter of 1606. " The treasurer and company of adventurers and planters of the city of London for the first colony in Virginia" were made a corporate body, to which the political powers, be- fore reserved to the king, were now transferred. An abso- lute title was also vested in the company to all the terri- tory extending two hundred miles north from Point Com- fort, and the same distance to the south, and stretching from the Atlantic westward to the South Sea.t Thus, while the limits of Virginia were expanded westwardly, across the continent, to the Pacific, they were curtailed one degree of latitude on the north. Their first charter of 1606 gave the Virginia Company ihe right to plant colo- nics as far north as the forty-first degree. The second charter of 1609 fixed their northern boundary at two hund- red miles north of Point Comfort, or about the fortieth par- allel of latitude. The Plymouth Company continued to enjoy a nominal existence for eleven years longer, under their first charter ; but, though Smith and Clorges several times during that period endeavored to form new settle- ments, not a single English colony was permanently plant- ed north of Virginia, until 1620. Meanwhile, France had continued to look across the At- f/i^rl^"' * Strachey, 179, 180 ; Purchas, iv., 1828 ; Gorges, N. E., 19 ; Mass. Hist. Coll., xix., 4 ; Hubbard, 3^-40. t Stith's Virg., App. ii. ; Chalmers. 25 ; Hazard, i., 58-72. [fj HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. lantic. Nearly eighty years after Verazzano had reported to Francis I. the deep river he had found opening into " a most beautiful lake,"* within the headlands forming the " Narrows," in New York harbor, and nearly seventy years after Cartier had first ascended the Saint Lawrence, a com- 1602. pany of merchants was organized at Rouen, to develop the resources of Canada. An expedition was soon fitted out, under the command of the Sieur du Pont Grrave, a wealthy merchant of Saint Malo, who had already made several voyages to Tadoussac, at the mouth of the deep and gloomy and cham-*^ Sagucnay. By command of the king, Pont Grrave was Knada. accompauicd by Samuel de Champlain, of Saint Onge, a captain in the French navy, who had just before return- 1603. ed from the "West Indies. Early in 1603, Pont Grave and Champlain reached Tadoussac, where leaving their ships to trade with the natives for peltries, they pushed boldly up the Saint Lawrence in a small skiff with five sailors, following the track of Cartier as far as the Sault de Saint Louis at Montreal.! On their return to France, they found sNovemb. that Henry IV. had granted to the Huguenot Sieur de Monts, one of his gentlemen of the bedchamber, who had ^a^tent°from rendered him great services during the wars, a patent for Henry IV. planting a permanent colony in America, between the for- tieth and the forty-sixth degrees of north latitude.^ The king soon after granted to De Monts and his associates a monopoly of the fur trade in Acadia and the G-ulf of Saint Lawrences^ lg04. Ii^ the spring of the next year, a new expedition was 7 March, accordingly organized and dispatched from Dieppe. Pi- loted by Champlain, and accompanied by the Sieur de Poutrincourt, De Monts safely reached the shores of Aca- I'ouirin- dia. The beautiful harbor of Port Royal, now Annapolis. i-ourl's set- 1.1 •' ' 1 niMiient at plcasmg the taste of Poutrincourt, he obtained permission i'ort Roval. , , . , , to establish himself there. De Monts, however, by Cham- rdony'at" P^^-in's advicc, selecting for his own colony the island of saj^'.'^ Saint Croix, in the river which now divides Maine from * " Bellissimo Lafio ;" sec Verazzano's Letter, in N. Y. H. S. Coll., i. (second series), p. 60, quoted, ante, p. 2. t Voyages de Champlain, p. 40 (edit. 1632). t Champlain, 42 ; Hazard, i., 45. * Lescarbot, i. ; Chalmers, 82. CHAMPLAIN IN CANADA. 17 New Brunswick, built a fort, and passed the winter there ; chap, l and thus, " at a time when there existed no English sub- jects in America, the first permanent settlement was made in Canada during the year 1604."* But the situation of Saint Croix proving inconvenient, 1605. De Monts, the next spring, transferred his diminished col- pio^j-rthr ony to Port Royal ; and, sailing along the coasts of Maine '^°^f,'^ °|^j and Massachusetts, contemporaneously with Weymouth, ^tts'"'^''" he claimed for France the sovereignty of the country as far as Cape Malebarre. The following autumn he return- September ed to Europe, leaving his colony in charge of Pont Grave, as his lieutenant, who, with Champlain and Champdore, received instructions to explore the adjacent territory more accurately, and trade among the hostile savages.! On his arrival in France, De Monts entered into a new engage- ment with Poutrincourt, who, accompanied by Marc Les- carbot the historian,1: returned to Port Royal with welcome 1606. supplies, just as the dispirited colonists were about embark- ing for home. The French cabins remained at Acadia ; and under judicious management the colony prospered, until it was surprised and broken up by Samuel Argall with a Virginian force, in 1613. Meanwhile, Henry IV., urged by the complaints of the French traders and fisher- men, who were deprived of their accustomed privileges on the coast, revoked the monopoly wliich he had conferred ^^^j^"^*^' on De Monts, to whom, however, he granted a small in- ?,'tgnf""'' demnity for his loss. But the king soon afterward ratified 1607. and confirmed, by his letters patent, the quiet possession of Port Royal to Poutrincourt. § After four years absence, Champlain returned tochampiain France, filled with the ambition of founding a French col- Canada. ony upon the River Saint Lawrence. Moved by Cham- plain's earnest representations, De Monts succeeded in ob- 1608. taining from the king a new commission to plant a settle- * Chalmers, 82 ; Champlain, 60. t Champlain, 66-93 ; Lescarbot. t Lescarbot, who published, in 1609, his " Histoire de la Nouvelle France," is described by Charlevoix (i.,p. 119) as "un avocat de Paris, nn auteur exact, et judicieox, «n homme qui eOt H<: aussi capable d'ttablir une colonie, que d'en 6crire I'histoire." t) Champlain, 99. B 18 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. 1608. 13 April. Quebec rounded. 3 July. 1609. 30 July. Discovery of Lake Cbamplain. The Dutch become competitors with the English and French. ment in Canada, and a monopoly of the fur trade for one year.* Two ships were promptly equipped at Honfleur, and dispatched, under the command of Champlain, to the Saint Lawrence. On the 3d of June, the expedition an- chored at Tadoussac. After a short delay, Champlain as- cended the great river, examining, as he w^ent along, the shores on both sides, for the most appropriate spot on which to establish the future capital of New France. Finding none " more commodious or better situated than the point of Quebec, so called by the savages," the rude founda- tions of a town were laid, near the spot where Cartier had passed the winter about three quarters of a century be- fore.! For five dreary months the secluded colonists en- dured the inhospitable climate, and saw the face of nature all around continually covered with a deep snow. A bright spring again opened the streams ; and in the following summer, Champlain, accompanied by two of his country- men, boldly ascending the River Richelieu or Saurel with a war-party of Hurons and Algonquins on an expedition against the Iroquois, gave victory to his allies by his Eu- ropean fire-arms, and discovered the beautiful lake on our northeastern fi*ontier, which will ever commemorate his illustrious name.t While England and France were thus quietly appropri- ating, by royal charters, nearly all the northern territory of the New World, a fresh competitor in American discov- * Champlain, 114. t Ibid., 118-134. i Champlain (edit. Paris, 1632), page 149, states that on the night of July 29, 1609, his party, while passing up the lake in their canoes, discovered their Iroquois enemies, "at the point of a cape which runs out into the lake from the west side." The enemy barri- caded themselves with trees on this cape ; and the next morning, Champlain, advancing at the head of the invaders, killed two of the Iroquois chiefs with a discharge of his arque- buse, and put their frightened followers to flight. He adds (p. 152), that " the place where this attack was made is in forty-three degrees and some minutes of latitude, and I named it the Lake of Champlain." On the map which accompanies his work, (Champlain marks the place " where the Iroquois were defeated," as a promontory a little to the northeast of " a small lake by which one goes to the Iroquois, after having passed that of Champlain." These particulars seem to identify Ticonderoga, in Essex county, as the spot where the first encounter took place, between the white man and the red man, on the soil of New York. Champlain distinctly states that he " afterward" saw the " waterfall" or outlet of " another lake, which is three or four leagues long." This lake, now known as Lake George, was first named " Saint Sacrenient," by the Jesuit Father Jogues, in 1646. Trans- lated extracts of Champlain's work have just been published in iii. Doc. Hist. N. Y., 1-9. See also Yates and Moulton's History of New York, i., 177-181. 1609. THE DUTCH REPUBLIC. 19 ery suddenly appeared, to divide with them the magnifi- chap. i. cent prize. The red flag of England waved over Virginia, ' and the white banner of France floated over Canada, as the tricolor of a new nation was first unexpectedly displayed in the unknown intermediate region.* A generation of men had lived to see a powerful repub- 1579. lie result from the confederation at Utrecht of the North- pj'ovi^ces'^ em Provinces of the Netherlands against the bigotry and er'auJ!?^'' despotism of Spain. These provinces, whose whole popu- lation scarcely exceeded two millions of souls, animated by a spirit which Sir Philip Sydney said to Q,ueen Eliz- abeth, " is the spirit of Grod, and is invincible," after a long and desperate conflict against a powerful adversary, finally triumphed over their vindictive oppressor, and com- 1609. pelled him to acknowledge their independence and sever- ^ '^p"'- eignty. The " Union of Utrecht," originally a league which bound the provinces together for mutual defense and pro- tection, became the Constitution of a Confederated Repub- Their re- mi /-(••IT 1 1 publican lie. This Constitution, though complex and not entirely constitu- popular, was nevertheless a decided and memorable step in human progress ; and it enabled the Dutch to establish and maintain a system of universal toleration, which, while contributing materially to the freedom of their own coun- try, made it an inviting asylum for the oppressed of other lands.t Providence early indicated to that singular country her Maritime destiny. While foreign despotic power inflamed the pa- Holland. triotism of her people, and forced them to struggle for civ- il and religious freedom, the natural disadvantages of her geographical position stimulated their enterprise, and * The national ensign of the United Provinces was adopted about the year 1582, at the suggestion of William I., prince of Nassau and Orange. It was composed of the prince's colors, orange, white, and blue, arranged in three equal horizontal stripes. After the death of William II. (1650), a red stripe was substituted for the orange ; and the Dutch ensign, at the present day, remains what it was, as thus modified, two centuries ago. — J. C. de Jonge, "Over den Oorsprong der Nederlandsche Vlag," 1831, 26-68. t I shall invariably use the term " Dutch," in its legitimate English sense, as referring exclusively to the inhabitants of the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands and their descendants. A blunder is frequently committed in applying the name " Dutch," instead of their proper denomination " Germans," to the people of Germany in general. 20 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. taught them continual lessons of perseverance. A vast morass, protruding into the sea, and formed by the accu- mulations which the Rhine continually brings down from the foot of the Alps, the Low Countries are only saved from the encroaching ocean by the ceaseless and irrepressible energy of their inhabitants. But the very ocean, which the untiring industry of the Dutch drives back from their narrow shores, was destined to be their widest scene of triumph, and their open avenue to wealth. A few fisher- men's huts at the mouth of the Amstel, at a period when the cities of Flanders had attained celebrity, soon became the "Venice of the North;" the sea, subdued by skillful toil, flowed quietly through her splendid canals, and brought treasures from the ends of the earth to the very doors of her cosmopolitan burghers ; and crowded streets, and rich warehouses, and stately palaces, and magnificent churches, usurped the ancient abode of the stork and the heron. Well might Fenelon describe the Tyre of his day as the " queen of all the seas."* Energetic, undaunted, and persevering at home, the Dutch could not fail to push their enterprising commerce The way of into cvcry zone. The very leo^end on their earliest coin- the Dutch r i • i , , i "in the age predicted, m holy words borrowed from the Vulgate, the maritime destiny of that people, whose "way is in the sea," and whose " paths are in many waters."! Accus- tomed from childhood to play fearlessly with the waves, the natives of Holland and Zealand were foremost in ad- venture ; and the capital of the merchants of Amsterdam and Middleburg found abundant employment for the hardy crews which their own cities readily furnished. Even while its political existence was yet uncertain, the upstart republic " grasped the whole commerce of the world as its ♦ " Celte grande ville semble nager au-dessu3 des eaux, et 6tre la reine de tout la mer. Les marchands y abordent de toutes les parties du monde, et ses habitants soiit eux-mdmes les plus fameux marchands qu'il y ait dans I'univers. Quand on entre dans cctte ville on croit d'abord que ce n'est point une ville qui appartienne 4 un peuplc particulier, mais qu'cUe est la ville commune de tous les peuples, et le centre de leur commerce."— T616- maque, liv. iii. t In 1562, the mint of Zealand issued a penny, stamped with the efflgy of a sceptered king riding a sea-hor-se over the waves, and surrounded by the words " In mari via tua, et semitiB tuse in aquis multis." See Bizot's " Medalische Historie," 12 ; Van Loon, i., 58. MARITIME ENTERPRISE OF THE DUTCH. 21 portion, and thus supplied itself with resources for a strug- chap. i. gle which was longer and more desperate than that of Greece with Persia!"* ^^^"^ While Charles V. was yet their sovereign, the Dutch ap- pear to have become familiar with part of the New World, Early voy- r _ ^ ' ages. which the Pontiff had granted, as a perpetual donation, to the kings of Spain. But the Revolution, which followed the accession of Philip II., interrupted for awhile the dis- tant voyages of the insurgent Batavians.t The same sum- mer that the United Provinces declared their independence of Spain, Thomas Buts, an English captain, who had five times visited the Spanish American islands, proposed to 1581. the states of Holland to conduct an expedition to the West '" ■^""*^' Indies. But though the projected adventure seems to have been viewed with favor, no results are recorded. All the while, commerce flourished at home ; and in spite of edicts, the Dutch maintained the command of the nearer seas. 1585. One thousand new vessels were annually built in Holland. From the Cape de Verd Islands to the White Sea, a profit- iiome com- able coasting trade was carried on ; out of the Vlie alone the Dutch, sailed nearly six hundred ships, in one year, to bring corn 1587. from the Baltic. Before long, William Usselincx, a native of Antwerp, who had spent many years in Castile, Portu- gal, and the Azores, suggested the advantage of an associ- 1591. ation for trading to the West Indies. The views of Usse- lincx were listened to with respect, but his counsels were not immediately followed. Yet they were not without their effect. A few years afterward, Grerrit Bicker Peters- zoon, of Amsterdam, and Jan Corneliszoon Leyen, of Enck- voyages to *' ' the West huysen, under the patronage of the States of Holland, iniiies. organized separate companies for the West India trade. 1597. Their enterprise was the forerunner of eventual success.^ Meanwhile, the Dutch, sharing largely in the carrying trade of Europe, had sought distant regions for a more lu- crative traffic. In 1594, Cornelius Houtman, the son of a * Heeren. t Sir John Carr on the Commerce of the Dutch. { Van Meteren, xiii., 260, 261 ; xiv., 283, 324 ; xix., 419 ; Wagenaar, Amst., 1., 407, 408, 416 ; Vad. Hist., ix., 152, 153 ; Davies's Holland, ii., 181, 182, 200, 201 ; Muilkerk (Berg Van Dussen), Bydragen tot de Gescniedenis onzer Kolonizatie in Noord Amerika, A., 2-7. 1594. 82 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. brewcr of Grouda, returning from Lisbon, where he had ■ spent the previous year, brought back tempting accounts of the gorgeous products of the East, which he had seen crowding the quays of the Tagus. His glowing descrip- tions provoked emulation ; and nine merchants of Am- sterdam, forming an association, equipped a flotilla of four ships, equally fitted for war and for trade, of which Hout- ages' 10*1116 '^^^ undertook the command. Following the track of the Ses' '"" Portuguese, he doubled the Cape of Grood Hope, and in two 1596. years returned to Amsterdam with rich cargoes of Eastern products.* And thus began the marvelous Indian com- merce of the Dutch. The edicts of Philip could not ex- clude the independent Netherlanders from the free navi- gation of the seas. Thenceforth they determined to vindi- cate, by force of arms, their right to participate freely in that commerce which despotic selfishness was vainly at- tempting to monopolize. The privateers of the Batavian Provinces were every where victorious ; and the ware- 1598. houses of their owners were soon filled with the choicest Dut"h en-°'^P'*oductions of the Indies, and ornamented with the ensigns ihe'East!" of ^lic couqucrcd galleons of Spain. And while the cir- cuitous voyage round the Cape of Grood Hope thus gave ample returns, mercantile enterprise sought shorter ave- nues to the East. Under the influence of the vigorous Balthazar Moucheron, of Middleburg, expeditions were dis- 1594. patched from Zealand and Holland to explore a more direct Ex edi- Passage to China, and Cathay or Japan, by way of Nova uons to the Zembla and the Polar Seas. Asfain, and a third time, un- Polar Sea.s. ^ ' ' 1595-6. successful attempts were repeated ; and the daring enter- prise, in which Barentsen, Cornelissen, and Heemskerk en- dured almost unparalleled trials, and won a renown as last- ing as that of Willoughby or Davis, was at length aban- doned in despair.! 1600. The wealth of the East, which soon began to pour into Holland, naturally produced competition among the partic- ipants in the open traffic. Influenced by the representa- * Richesse de la Ilollande, i., 35 ; Van Meteren, xxiii., 509. t Van Meteren, xviii., 371, 376 ; xix., 404, 419 ; Lambrechtsen, 7, 8 ; Davies, ii., 290- 294, 328 ; Muilkerk, A., 18, 19. DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY. 23 tions of the merchants, who feared in an unrestrained rival- chap. i. ry a diminution of their individual profits, and looking also to the political advantages which the republic itself might gain in its conflict with Spain, the States G-eneral now re- solved that the various adventurers engaged in commerce with the East should be united in one corporate body. A charter was accordingly granted in the spring of 1602, by 1602. which those merchants were incorporated for a period of ^ ^"''*' twenty-one years, under the name of the "East India The Dutch Company," with a capital of 6,600,000 of livres, the ex- company. elusive privilege of trading in the Eastern Seas beyond the Cape of G-ood Hope on the one side and the Straits of Magellan on the other, and large powers for conquest, col- onization, and government within those limits.* While this powerful commercial monopoly was covering 1607. the Eastern Ocean with its fleets, and returning to its share- holders, in a single year, three fourths of their invested cap- ital,t men's minds had been earnestly considering whether the Western World might not also offer a tempting field for Dutch mercantile enterprise. William Usselincx, who had already su2r«fested an association to trade in the West a. west in- •^ " dia Coinpa- Indies, was asjain among the most zealous to uro;e the im- ny pro- ^ ° ^ posed. mediate establishment of a company in the Netherlands, modeled after the one which had proved so successful in the East. He represented his project as an additional means of humbling their arrogant enemy on the very seas from which Philip was endeavoring to shut out the com- merce of the republic ; and besides the mercantile advant- ages which would result from securing the traffic with those affluent regions, he pressed the higher motive of the conversion of their heathen inhabitants to the Cliristian faith. The proposals which Usselincx circulated won gen- eral assent ; and, aided by the influence of Plancius, Lin- schoten, and other leading scholars and merchants of Hol- land and Zealand, an application was made to the States * Van Meteren, xxiv., 512. Cape Horn was not known to Europeans at this period. Schouten, who named it after his native city, "Hoorn," in North Holland, first sailed round the Cape in 1616. t In the year 1606, the East India Company divided 75 per cent. Moulton, 194. 34 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. Greneral for the incorporation of a " "West India Company," to trade exclusively, for thirty-six years, to the coast of ' Africa, from the tropics to the Cape of Grood Hope, and to Its organi- America, from the Straits of Magellan to Newfoundland. zatton post- ' ~ P""*'''- But the Dutch government w^as now engaged in negotia- tions for a peace with Spain, which Grotius and Barne- veldt feared the proposed charter might prejudice ; and the truce, which was finally concluded in 1609, suspended for several years any definite action on the subject.*' Henry Mcanwhilc, a shorter passage to China and Cathay, by voyages Way of thc Nortlicm Seas, continued to be a favorite the- dontothe ory in England, as well as in Holland and Denmark. A company of wealthy and energetic men in London, not dis- couraged by the ill-luck of all previous efforts, determined to attempt again, in 1607, the enterprise in which so many others had failed. Contributing the necessary means for an expedition, they intrusted the command to a skillful and experienced mariner, Henry Hudson, a native of En- gland, and a friend of the famous Captain Jolin Smith, who had just before sailed with the first colony for Virginia, and whom, in boldness, energy, and perseverance Hudson strongly resembled. But the expedition was unsuccess- 1608. ful, as was also a second voyage in the following year, and the London Company suspended further efforts.! Not disheartened by his two failures, Hudson now re- 1609. solved to go to Holland, in the hope of meeting there encour- gj^slonoi- agement to attempt again the venturesome enterprise he 'and. ^^^ gQ ambitious to achieve. He was not disappointed. His proposition to the East India Company, though opposed by the Zealand department, where Balthazar Moucheron's long experience in former fruitless voyages inffuenced his colleagues, found favor with the more liberal Amsterdam The Dutch dircctors. By their orders, a yacht, or Vlie-boat, called E. I. Com- -^ ' J ' panyf.toutthe " Half Moon," belonging to the company, of forty Moon lasts or eighty tons burden, t was equipped for the voy- » Van Meteren, 527, 528, 553, 556, 601, 603 ; Grotius, 721 ; Bentivoglio, i., 37 ; Bancroft, ii., 262, 263 ; Muilkcrk, A., 10-17 ; Davies, ii., 404, 405. t Purchas, iii., 567 ; N. Y. II. S. Coll., i., 61-102 ; Yates and Moulton, i., 198-200. t " Ship book" found, in 1841, in the Archives of the old East India Company at Am- THE HALF MOON SAILS FROM HOLLAND. 25 age, and manned by a crew of twenty sailors, partly Dutch cuap. i. and partly English. The command was intrusted to Hud- TTT • 1G09 son ; a Dutch " under-schipper" or mate was appointed ; and instructions were given to explore a passage to China by the northeast or northwest.* The Half Moon left Amsterdam on the fourth of April, 1609, and on the sixth took her departure from the Texel. 6 Apni. Doublinsr the Cape of Norway on the fifth of May, Hudson s^i's from the Texel. found the sea so full of ice, that he was obliged to aban- don his purpose of penetrating eastward of Nova Zembla. Some of his motley crew, who had been used only to the East India service, could ill endure the severity of the cold, and now began to murmur. Upon this, Hudson proposed to them two alternatives. The fu'st was to sail directly to America, in about latitude 40°, where, according to the letters and charts which Smith had sent him from Vir- ginia, he would find a sea affording a passage to the East round the English colony. The other proposition was to penetrate westward, through Davis's Straits ; and this be- ing generally approved, Hudson sailed toward the island of Faro, where he arrived on the last of May, and remain- 3i May. ed a day to water. Thence he stretched westward across the Atlantic ; but failing to see the islands which Frobish- er's ships had visited in 1578, he shaped his course for Newfoundland. After a stormy and perilous voyage, in which he lost his foremast overboard, Hudson arrived, ear- ly in July, on the Banks, where he was becalmed long enough to catch more cod than his " small store of salt" could cure. He then stood farther to the west, and run- sterdam. A " Vlie-boat" ia so called from it.s being built expre.ssly for the difficult navi- gation of the Vlie and the Texel. It is a very fast-sailing vessel, with two masts, and usually of about one hundred tons burden. The name, as well as the model of this Dutch craft, was soon adopted in other countries. The French called it " Flibot ;" the English, " Fly-boat ;" and the Spaniards, " Flibote." Some of our writers have, unfortunately, al- tered the historical name of the " Half Moon" to the fancifiU name of the " Crescent." Hudson's vessel was really called by her owners " de Halve-Maan," and not "do Was- sende-Maan," of which latter phrase only is " Crescent" the proper English equivalent. * Van Meteren, xxxi., 674 ; N. Y. H. S. Coll., ii. (.second series), 368-370; Lambrecht- sen, 9, 10, and in N. Y. II. S. Coll., i. (second series), 84, 85 ; Muilkerk, 18, 19. Robert .Tuet, of Limehouse, England, who wrote the Journal printed by Purchas, acted as Hud- son's own clerk, but not as " under-schipper" of the Half Moon. Van Meteren expressly says that that officer was a Netherlander. 26 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. (H.vr. 1. ninw alono^ the coast of Nova Scotia, arrived at Penobscot Bay, where he remained a week, cuttinsr a new foremast 18 July ^^^ mending his tattered rigging. While there, he was Penobscot visited by two French-built shallops full of Indians, some ^^^- of whom even " spake some words of French," and pro- posed to traffic. But Hudson, suspicious of his visitors, kept a vigilant watch ; while a part of his ship's compa- ny seized one of the shallops, with which they landed, and wantonly despoiled the cabins of the friendly natives. Fearing that the lawless conduct of his turbulent crew 26 July might provoke retaliation, Hudson set sail the next day to the southward, and kept at sea for a week, until he made 3 August, the land again, and sent his shallop in to sound the shore. The next morning he anchored at the northern end of a headland, where his boat's crew landed, and found the na- tives rejoicing to see them. Supposing it to be an un- known island, Hudson named the region New Hoi.land, in honor of his patrons' fatherland. But after trying in vain to find an opening to the westward, he put about, and Atcape passing the southern headland, which he now perceived was the one which Grosnold had discovered in 1602 and named " Cape Cod," he stood off to sea again toward the southwest. 18 August. In a fortnight Hudson arrived off the mouth of the Ches- apeake Bay, which he recognized as " the entrance into At the the King's River in Virginia, where our Englishmen are." chesa- But the temptation to meet his friend Smith, who, disgust- ed with the distractions in the colony at Jamestown, and maimed by accidental wounds, was preparing to return to England, did not divert Hudson from the great object of his voyage. Contenting himself with a few soundings, he stood again to sea, and passing northward along the coast 28 August, of Maryland, he ran into a " great bay with rivers" — aft- dis^vers erward called the " South River," and " New Port May" i)"iawarr by the Dutch, and " Delaware" by the English — where ^^' the Half Moon anchored.* * Vander Donek.p. 7, adds, and "took the first possession." This bay and river the Dutch called the South River, to distinguish it from the North or Hudson River ; and also HUDSON AT SANDY HOOK. 27 Finding the navigation so difficult, that " he that will chap. i. thoroughly discover this great bay must have a small pin- nace that must draw but four or five feet water, to sound before him," Hudson stood out to sea again, and, running northward several days along a low sandy coast, with " broken islands," arrived, on the evening of the second of 2 sept. September, in sight of the "high hills" of Navesinck, then, as now, " a very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The next morning he sailed onward until ssept he came to " tliree great rivers," the most northerly of which he attempted to enter, but was prevented by the " very shoal bar before it."* So, sending his boat before him to sound the way, he went in past Sandy Hook, and on the evening of the third of September, 1609, anchored Anchors m the Half Moon in the bay, where the waters were alive Hook Bay with fish.t For a week Hudson lingered in the lower bay, admiring Hudson m New Jcr* the "goodly oaks" which garnished the neighboring shores, sey. and holding frequent intercourse with the native savages of Monmouth, in New Jersey. The Half Moon was visit- ed in return by the wondering Indians, who flocked on board the strange vessel, clothed with mantles of feath- ers and robes of fur, and adorned with rude copper neck- laces. Meanwhile, a boat's crew was sent to sound the e scpt river, which opened to the northward. Passing through the Narrows, they found a noble harbor, with "very good riding for ships." A little further on, they came to " the Kills," between Staten Island and Bergen Neck, " a narrow river to the westward, between two islands." The lands New Port May, after Cornelis .Tacobsen May, of Hoorn. Many of our writers assert that Lord Delawarr touched at this bay, on his way to Virginia in 1610. But this is an error. On that occasion Lord Delawarr sailed by way of the West Indies, and approached Vir- ginia from the southward. Indeed, there is no evidence that Lord Delawarr ever saw the waters which now bear his name, as will be shown in a note (D) in the Appendix. * Two of these were, no doubt, the Raritan and the Narrows ; and the third one, to the northward, with the shoal bar before it, probably Bockaway Inlet. t " So we weighed and went in, and rode in five fathoms ooze ground, and saw many salmons, and mullets, and rays very great. The height is forty degrees thirty minutes." This statement in Juet's Journal agrees, very nearly, with the actual latitude of Sandy Hook, which is forty degrees twenty-eight minutes. Doctor Mitchill, in N. Y. II. S. Coll., i., 41, however doubts the correctness of the accounts in the Journal respecting the abund- ance of salmon in the North River when first visited by Hudson, though he admits that that fish has been taken there. 28 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. on botli sidcs Were " as pleasant with grass, and flowers, and goodly trees, as ever they had seen, and very sweet smells came from them." Six miles up this river they saw " an open sea," now known as Newark Bay. In the evening, as the hoat was retm-ning to the ship, the explor- ing party was set upon by two canoes full of savages ; and Death of one of the English sailors, John Colman, was killed by an man. ° arrow shot in his tliroat. The next day Hudson buried, 7 seiit. upon the adjacent beach, the comrade who had shared the dangers of his polar adventures, to become the first Eu- ropean victim of an Indian weapon in the placid waters he had now reached. To commemorate the event, Sandy 9 Sept. Hook was named " Colman's Point." The ship was soon visited by canoes full of native warriors ; but Hudson, sus- pecting their good faith, took two of the savages and " put red coats upon them," while the rest were not suffered to approach. The tiaif Cautiously sounding her way through the lower bay, «theNa?:the Half Moon at length "went into the river" past the n^ept. Narrows, and anchored near the mouth of the Kills in "a very good harbor for all winds." The native savages came at once on board, " making show of love ;" but Hudson, remembering Colman's fate, "durst not trust them." The 12 Sept. next morning twenty-eight canoes, "made of single hol- lowed trees," and crowded with men, women, and chil- dren, visited the yacht. But none were suffered to come on board, though their oysters and beans were gladly pur- chased. In the afternoon the Half Moon ran six miles further up ; and the crew were enraptured by the loveli- ness of the surrounding country. "It is as beautiful a land as one can tread upon," said Hudson, " and abounds in all kinds of excellent ship timber."* Hudson be- "^^^ ^^^^^ °^ Europcaus, Hudsou now began to explore cendthr' *^® great river which stretched before him to the north, North Riv- opening, as he hoped, the way to the Eastern Seas. Slow- 13 Sept. ly drifting upward with the flood-tide, he anchored over night just above Yonkers, m sight of " a high point of ♦ "Is BOO schoonen landt als men met voeten belreden mach."— Hudson's Report, quoted by De Laet, cap. x. HUDSON EXPLORES THE NORTH RIVER. 29 land, which showed out" five leagues off to the north.* chap. i. The next day, a southeast wind carrying him rapidly up Tappan and Haverstraw Bays, and beyond the " strait" j.j ^ ^ between Stony and Verplanck's Points, Hudson sailed on- ward through the majestic pass gviarded hy the frowning Donderberg, and at nightfall anchored his yacht near West Point, in the midst of the sublimest scenery of the " Matteawan"t Mountains. The next morning was misty until the sun arose, and 15 sept. the grandeur of the overhanging highlands was again re- vealed. A fair south wind sprung up as the weather be- came clear ; and while the Half Moon was getting under way, the two savages who had been detained captives on board at Sandy Hook, watching their opportunity, leaped out of a port-hole and swam ashore, scornfully deriding the crew as the yacht sailed onward. A bright autumnal day succeeded the misty morning. Running sixty miles up along the varied shores which lined the deep channel, and delighted every moment with the ever-changing scen- ery, and the magnificent virgin forests which clothed the river banks with their gorgeous autumnal hues, Hudson arrived, toward evening, opposite the loftier " mountains nie iiair which lie from the river's side,"$ and anchored the Half catskiii. Moon near Catskill landing, where he found a " very lov- ing people and very old men." The friendly natives flocked on board the yacht, as she le Sept. remained lazily at anchor the next morning, and brought the crew " ears of Indian corn, and pumpkins, and tobac- co," which were readily bought " for trifles." In the aft- * The North River schippers afterward named this well-known landmark, just north of Nyack, in Rockland county, " Verdrieti^ Hook," or Tedious Point. It is about seven hundred feet high, and obtained its name because it was generally so long in sight of the slow-sailing sloops of former days. The name, formerly .so expressive, is still retained ; though our Hitting modern conveyances hardly allow it now to tire the eye. t The Indian name for the Highlands, according to Spafford, and Moulton, i., p. 240. t The " Kaatsbergs," or Catskill Mountains, the most elevated range along the river, are about eight miles inland from the west bank, and extend northward from back of the town of Saugerties, in Ulster county, to the town of Durham, in Greene county. Ac- cording to Captain Partridge's measurement, in 1818, " Round Top," the highest point in the chain, is 3804 feet above tide water ; "High Peak," the next in altitude, is .'(TIS feet. " Pine Orchard," the famous summer resort of tourists, is a level tract of about seven acres, on the edge of a precipice about 2214 feet above the river, of which it commands a magnificent view for sixty miles. 30 mSTORY OF THF STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. emoon, Hudson went six miles further up the river, and anchored over night near the marshes which divide the channel, opposite the flourishing city which now bears his 17 Sept. name. Early the next morning he set sail again, and slowly working his way through the shoaling channel and among the "small islands" which embarrassed navigation, anchored, toward evening, about eighteen miles further up, between Schodac and Castleton. 18 Sept. Here the Half Moon remained at anchor all the next Hudson day. In the afternoon, Hudson went ashore "with an old sdiodac. savage, a governor of the country, who carried him to his house and made him good cheer." The visit is graphic- ally described in the original Journal preserved by De Laet. "I sailed to the shore," says Hudson, "in one of their canoes, with an old man who was the chief of a tribe consisting of forty men and seventeen women. These I saw there, in a house well constructed of oak bark, and cir- cular in shape, so that it had the appearance of being built with an arched roof. It contained a great quantity of maize or Indian corn, and beans of the last year's growth ; and there lay near ^the house, for the purpose of drying, enough to load tliree ships, besides what was growing in the fields. On our coming into the house, two mats were spread out to sit upon, and some food was immediately served in well-made red wooden bowls. Two men were also dispatched at once, with bows and arrows, in quest of game, who soon brought in a pair of pigeons which they had shot. They likewise killed a fat dog, and skinned it in great haste, with shells which they had got out of the water. They supposed that I would remain with them for the night ; but I returned, after a short time, on board the ship. The land is the finest for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of ev- ery description. These natives are a very good people ; for when they saw that I would not remain, they supposed that I was afraid of their bows ; and, taking their arrows, they broke them in pieces and threw them into the fire."* * Juet, in hia account of the voyage, says that the person who went ashore with the THE HALF MOON AT ALBANY. 31 With the early flood-tide on the following morning, the chap. i. Half Moon " ran higher up, two leagues above the shoals," and anchored in deep water, near the site of the present jg g^pj city of Albany. The people of the country came flocking ^oon af ^i. on board, and brought grapes and pumpkins, and beaver '""'^' and otter skins, which were purchased for beads, knives, and hatchets. Here the yacht lingered several days. The carpenter went ashore, and made a new foreyard ; while 21 stpt. Hudson and his mate, " determined to try some of the chief men of the country, whether they had any treachery in them," took them down into the Half Moon's cabin, and " gave them so much wine and aqua vitce that they were all merry." An old Indian, stupefied with drink, remain- ed on board to the amazement of his simple countrymen, who "could not tell how to take it." The traditions of Reveion the aborigines yet preserve the memory of this first revel,* which was followed, the next day, by another visit from the reassured savages, one of whose chiefs, addressing Hud- son, "made an oration, and showed him all the country round about." Every thing now seemed to indicate that the Half Moon End of the had reached the head of ship navigation. The downward voyage, current was fresh and clear, the shoaling channel was nar- row and obstructed ; yet Hudson, unwilling, perhaps, to abandon his long-cherished hope, dispatched the mate, with 22 scpt. a boat's crew, to sound the river higher up. After going " eight or nine leagues" further — probably to some dis- tance above Waterford — and finding "but seven feet wa- " old savage," was the " master's mate," or onder schipper, wrho, according to Van Mete- ren, was a Dutchman. On the other hand, Dc Laet expressly states that it was Hudson himself, and he quotes, from Hudson's own Journal, the passage which I have inserted in the text. The place where Hudson landed is stated by Do Laet to have been in lati- tude 42° 18'. This would seem to fix the scene of the event at about five or six miles above the present city of Hudson, wliich is in 42" 14'. But latitudes were not as accurately determined in those days as they are now ; and a careful computation of the distances run by the Half Moon, as recorded in Juet's log-book, shows that on the 18th of September, when the landing occurred, she must have been " up six leagues higher" than Hudson, or in the neighborhood of Schodac and Castleton, * " It is very remarkable th.tt, among the Iroquois or Six Nations, there is a tradition, still very distinctly preserved, of a scene of intoxication which occurred with a company of the natives when the first ship arrived." — Rev. Dr. Miller's Discourse, in N. Y. 11. S. Coll., i., p. 35 ; Heckewelder, in Moulton'e N. Y., i., p. 551-254 ; ii., N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 71-73. See Note A, Appendix. 32 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. 1. ter, and inconstant soundings," the exploring party return- ed late at night, and reported that they had " found it to be at an end for shipping to go in."* Hudson re- Hudsou uow reluctautly prepared to return. His ascent the river, of the rivcr had occupied eleven days ; his descent con- 23 Sept. sumed as many more. Bidding adieu to the friendly sav- ages among whom he had tarried so pleasantly, and slow- ly descending the difficult channel for nine or ten leagues, 24 .Sept. he ran aground again, the next afternoon, on the " bank of ooze in the middle of the river," opposite the present city of Hudson. Here he remained wind-bound for two days, which were occupied in wooding the vessel, and in visit- 86 Sept. ing the neighboring shores. While the yacht was lying at anchor, two canoes full of savages came up the river six miles fi'om Catskill, where the crew had " first found lov- ing people" on their upward voyage. In one of these ca- noes was the old man who had reveled on board the Half Moon " at the other place," and who had followed by land the yacht's progress down the river. He now brought " another old man with him," who gave " stropes of beads" to Hudson, and "showed him all the country thereabout, as though it were at his command." The visitors were kindly entertained ; and as they departed, made signs that the Europeans, who were now within two league^ of their dwelling-place, " should come down to them." But the persuasions of the friendly old chief were of no 27 Sept. avail. Weighing anchor the next day with a fair north wind, Hudson ran down the river eighteen miles, past the wigwams of the " loving people" at Catskill, who were "very sorrowful" for his departure, and toward evening anchored in deep water near Red Hook, where part of the 29 Sept. crew went on shore to fish. The next two days were con- sumed in slowly working down to the " lower end of the long reach" below Pokeepsie, where the yacht was again visited by friendly Indians ; and then proceeding onward, * De Laet, in cap. vii., states that Hudson explored the river " to nearly 43° of north latitude, where it became so narrow and of so little depth, that he found it necessary to return." As Albany is in 42° SS^, the boat must, therefore, have gone above that place " eight or nine leagues" further — the distance given in Juet's Journal. RETURN OF THE HALF MOON. 33 Hudson anchored in the evening under the northern edge chap. i of the Highlands. Here ho lay wind-Lound for a day, in ~ a very good roadstead, admiring the magnificent mount- 30 ^ ' ' ains, which looked to him " as if some metal or mineral were in them." Early the next morning a fair wind sprung up, and the 1 ootobcr. Half Moon, sailing rapidly through the winding Highlands, anchored, at noon, near Stony Point. Here some of the " people of the mountains" came on board, wondering at the "ship and weapons." The same afternoon, a thievish native, detected in pilfering some articles through the cab- in windows, was shot without mercy by the mate ; and Indians the stolen things were promptly recovered from the canoes stony of the frightened savages, who lost another life in their flight. This was the first Indian blood shed by Europeans on the North River. After this sanguinary atonement had been exacted, the yacht dropped down two leagues further, through Haverstraw Bay to Teller's Point, near the mouth of the Croton. The next day, a brisk northwest wind carried the Half 2 October. Moon seven leagues further down, through Tappan Sea to the head of Manhattan Island, where one of the captive Indians, who had escaped from the yacht in the Highlands, on the upward voyage, came off from the shore with many other savages. But Hudson, " perceiving their intent," would suffer none of them to enter the vessel. Two <^a- tko um noes full of warriors then came under the stern, and shot 'a'-kci near a liight ot arrows mto the yacht. A few muskets wereington. discharged in retaliation, and two or three of the assail- ants were killed. Some hundred Indians then assembled at the point near Fort Washington, to attack the Half Moon as she drifted slowly by ; but a falcon-shot killed two of them, " whereupon the rest fled into the woods." Again the assailants manned another canoe, and again the attack was repulsed by a falcon shot, which destroyed their frail bark ; and so the savages "went their way," mourn- ing the loss of nine of their warriors. The yacht then "got Hudson an- down two leagues beyond that place," and anchored over Ho°boktn. C 1609. 34 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. 1. night " on the other side of the river," in the bay near Ho- boken. Hard by his anchorage, and upon "that side of the river that is called Manna-hat a,''"' Hudson noticed that " there was a cliff that looked of the color of a white gi-een."* Here he lay wind-bound the next day, and " saw 4 October, no pcoplc to trouble" him. The following morning, just one month after his arrival at Sandy Hook, Hudson weigh- ed his anchor for the last time, and coming out of the " great mouth of the great river" into which he "had run Sails from SO far," he set all sail, and steered off again into the main Sandy iiook. sea.t The Half Moon's company now held a council, and were of various minds. They were in want of stores, and were not on good terms with each other, " which, if they had been, they would have accomplished more." The Dutch mate wished to wdnter at Newfoundland, and then explore the northwest passage through Davis's Straits. But Hud- son, fearing his mutinous crew, who had lately begun to " threaten him savagely," opposed this proposition, and suggested their immediate return to Holland. At last they ■iiie Half all agreed to winter in Ireland. So they sailed eastward rivera^t'^ for a mouth, without seeing any land by the way, and on anmou I. ^j^^ seventh of November, 1609, arrived safely at Dart- mouth, in Devonshire. Hudson Thence Hudson immediately sent over an account of sends a re- i t\ i t-i t i ■ /-< port to the his voyage to the Dutch East India Company, at Amster- (■ompaiiy. dam, proposing to renew the search for the northwest pas- sage in the following spring, after refitting the Half Moon in England, and superseding several of the most turbulent of her crew. But contrary winds prevented his report from reaching Amsterdam for some time. When at length the East India directors heard of Hudson's arrival at Dart- mouth, they instructed him to return with his vessel to Holland as soon as possible. As he was about complying * The mineralogist may spend an agreeable day in visiting this clifl', near the " Elysian Fields" at Hoboken. Hudson supposed it to be a copper or silver mine. t Sec Juet's Journal of Hudson's third voyage, in Purchas, and in i. N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 102-146 ; and De Laet, in second series of same collections, i., 289-310. An interesting analysis of the Half Moon's voyage up and down the river, is in Yates and Moulton's His tory of New York, vol. i., p. 201-272. THE RIVER OF THE MOUNTAINS, IN 1609 ;35 with these orders early in the foliowint^ year, he was ar- chap. \. hitrarily forbidden to leave his native country by the En- ; glish authorities, who were jealous of the advantages ja„„a, ' which the Dutch had gained by reason of Hudson's dis- coveries while in their service ; and the Half Moon was detained for several months, quietly at anchor in Dart- mouth harbor.* The American territory, which had thus been discover- 'i'i><: out^h •^ . discoveries ed by the agents of the Dutch East India Company, though '" North included within James's fu-st Virginia patent of 1606, was actually unoccupied, and unpossessed ''by any Christian prince or people." In the south, John Smith's exploring parties were visiting the upper waters of the Chesapeake, and far off in the north the arquebuses of Samuel Cham- plain were dealing death to the aborigines on the " Lake of the Iroquois," when, with extraordinary coincidence, Henry Hudson was about piloting the first European ves- 1609. sel through the unknown " River of the Mountains" which flowed between. No stranger but Verazzano seems to have passed the " Narrows" before those wondering mariners who navigated the Half Moon of Amsterdam up that ma- jestic stream, to which the assent of the world has given the name of its illustrious explorer.! All above was new and undiscovered. The lethargy of uncivilized nature reiffned throughout the undisturbed solitude. The wild game sprung from their familiar retreats, startled by the * N. Y. H. S. Coll. (second series), ii., 370. " Et comme Hudson 6tait pr^t de partir avec la navire et ses gens, pour aller faire rapport de son voyage, il fut arrets en Angle- terre, et recut commandement de ne point partir, mais qu'il dcvait faire service il sa pa- trie ; ce qu'on commanda aussi aux autres Anglais qui etaient au vaisseau. Ce que plu- sieurs trouverent Ibrt Strange, de ce qu'on ne permettait pas au patron d'allcr faire compte, et de faire rapport de son voyage et de qu'il avail fait, a ses maitres, qui I'avaient envoys en ce voyage ; puisque cela se faisait pour le bien conimun de toutes sories de navigations. Ceci se fit en Janvier. 1610. On estimait que les Anglais le voulaient en- voyer avec quelques navires, vers Virginia, pour rechercher plus avant la susdite Riviere." — Van Meteren, xxxi., 074, 675, edit. 1618. Emanuel Van Meleren, the author of this ex- cellent History of the Netherlands, was for many years Dutch consul in England, and died in London, at the age of seventy-seven, on the 18th of April, 1612. t It is stated, indeed, in the " Report and Advice" presented by the Chamber of Ac- counts of the West India Company, on the 15th of December, 1644, that New Netherland, " stretching flrom the South River, situated in thirty-eight and a half degrees, to Cape Mal- cbarre, in the latitude of forty-one and a half degrees, was first visited by the inhabitants of this country, in the year 1598, and especially by those of the Greenland Company, but without making fixed habitations, and only as a refuge in the winter." — Holland Docu- ments, ii., 368. This statement, however, needs confirmation. See Appendix, note A. 1609. 36 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. I. unusual eohoes which rolled through the ancient forests, as the roar of the first Dutch cannon boomed over the si- lent waters, and the first Dutch trumpets blew the inspir- ing national airs of the distant Fatherland. The simple Indians, roaming unquestioned through their native woods, which no sounding axe had yet begun to level, and pad- dling their rude canoes along the base of the towering hills which lined the unexplored river's side, paused in solemn amazement, as they beheld their strange visitor approach- ing from afar, and marveled whence the apparition came.* Thus the triumphant flag of Holland was the harbinger of civilization along the banks of the great river of New York. The original purpose of the Half Moon's voyage had failed of accomplishment ; but w^hy need Hudson re- pine ? He had not, indeed, discovered for his employers the long-sought passage to the Eastern Seas ; but he had led the way to the foundation of a mighty state.t The at- tractive region to which accident had conducted the Am- sterdam yacht, soon became a colony of the Netherlands, where, for half a century, the sons and daughters of Hol- land established themselves securely under the ensign of the republic ; transplanted the doctrines of a Reformed faith ; and obeyed the jurisprudence which had governed their ancestors. In the progress of events, a superior pow- er took unjust possession of the land ; and nearly two hund- red years have rolled by since the change came to pass. Yet the hereditary attributes of its earliest settlers have always happily influenced the destinies of its blended com- munity ; and many of the noblest characteristics of its Ba- tavian pioneers have descended to the present day, unim- paired by the long ascendency of the red cross of Saint Greorge, and only more brightly developed by the inter- mingling of the various races which soon chose its inviting territory for their home. The picturesque shores, along which Hudson lingered with enthusiastic delight — and the magnificence of which ♦ See Appendix, note B. t The population of the State of New York, in 1850, was 3,097,358 ; about equal to thai of the United States when the Definitive Treaty of Peace was signed in 1783. 1609. THE HUDSON RIVER. 89 drew from him the bold eulogium, "it is as beautiful a chap. i. land as the foot of man can tread upon" — have become the' favorite seat of elegance and refinement, and have witness- ed the resistless rise of " empire and of arts." The silent River of the Mountains is now the highway of a bound- less traffic, and bears upon its bosom the teeming wealth which grand artificial channels, connecting it with the mediterranean seas of a broad continent, bring down to its tides, from coasts of vast extent and illimitable resources. Swift steamers now crowd those waters, where Fulton's native genius first " by flame compelled the angry sea, To vapor rarefied, his bark to drive In triumph proud, through tiie loud sounding surge ;" while the yet more " rapid car" rushes incessantly along the iron road which science, obeying the call of enterprise, has stretched along the river's bank. The rights and in- terests of millions are now secured by equal laws, ordain- ed by freely chosen agents, and enforced by the common consent. And while, at the head of tide-water, the political afiairs of the commonwealth are watched and administer- ed, and the people declare their sovereign will, the ocean- washed island of Manhattan, at the river's mouth, is the cosmopolitan emporium of an eager commerce which whit- ens every sea. 38 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. CHAPTER II. 1609-1614. Chap. II. At the time of Hudson's grand discovery, the United Netherlands had iust taken the rank of an independent The Dutch '> ' an inde- nation. For more than forty years they had maintained pendent na- . tion when an uncqual strife against the bigotry and despotism of made dis- Spain. The confederation of the Provinces, in 1579, had covenes in '^ _ ... their scrv- been followed, in 1581, by the noblest political act which the world had then ever witnessed — ^the declaration of their national independence. Q,ueen Elizabeth, who had warm- ly espoused the cause of the revolted provinces the year be- fore the Union of Utrecht, formally opened diplomatic re- lations with the States General in 1585, and even sent troops to their succor, under the command of her favorite, the Earl of Leicester. In 1604, James I. not only re- ceived ambassadors from the states, but, in conjunction with Henry IV. of France, agreed to use his best efforts to procure the recognition of their independence by Spain. A large number of the people of England, at the same time, were warmly in favor of an alliance with the Netherlands. The naturally unambitious character of the Dutch and the convenience of their country for trading, rendered them safe and profitable allies ; while the difficulty of securing the English coast from their attacks, and the English mer- chant vessels from their privateers, would have rendered them equally mischievous and formidable enemies. Yet James himself, though he agreed to permit contingents of troops to be raised within his kingdom for their defense, heartily disliked the Dutch ; and the more so, because he found that the English soldiers who served in the Nether- 1009. TRUCE BETWEEN SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS. 39 lands, returned home filled with notions of popular rights c hap. ii. and civil liberty which they had imbibed in the repub-' lican provinces.* But Providence had determined that the soldiery of England were to learn in Holland, during the reign of James, lessons in human freedom and govern- ment, which were soon afterward to receive a stern appli- cation in the reign of James's unfortunate son. Three years more of varied war, in which the success- es of Spinola's armies on land were splendidly overbalanced by the victories of the Dutch fleets at sea, and the King of Spain, wearied with an apparently interminable contest, which had baflled all his calculations, and nearly drained his treasury, sent ambassadors to the Hague early in 1607, to open negotiations for a peace with the Netherlands. But the Dutch were not yet unanimous for a cessation of hostilities. Since their triumphs over the Spaniards, they had begun to imbibe a spirit of ambition and conquest alien to their former sober national character ; and, from being patient traders and brave defenders of their country against invasion, they had become adventurous and victo- rious aggressors. Perceiving these changes in the habits of the people, and fearing still greater and more inconven- ient modifications, Barneveldt, the Advocate of Holland, and many other patriotic statesmen, ardently wished for peace. But the clergy, who mistrusted the bigotry of Phil- ip, deemed an equitable treaty with Spain impracticable ; and the stadtholder. Prince Maurice of Nassau, naturally opposed the termination of a war in which he was gaining both laurels and emolument as general-in-chief. A large party sided with Maurice, urging that war was more safe and advantageous for the provinces than peace, which would, at any rate, throw out of employment vast num- bers of people ; and many of the merchants feared that with the end of hostilities the trade and commerce, which had been transferred to Amsterdam, would return to more commodiously-situated Antwerp. Fortunately the coun- sels of peace prevailed, and the negotiations which were * Davies, ii., 384, 385. 40 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. opened by the Spanish ambassadors, requesting a tempora- ry truce, received unexpected emphasis from Heemskerk's ■ splendid victory over D'Avila, before Gibraltar, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1607. But Philip, though he agreed to acknowledge the sovereignty and independence of the provinces, refused to gi-ant them, by treaty, a freedom of trade to India ; while the states, on the other hand, were determined, at all hazards, to insist upon their right to a commerce in which they employed upward of one hund- red and fifty ships and eight thousand men, and the an- nual returns of which were estimated at forty-three mill- ions of guilders. With the acknowledgment of their po- litical independence, they claimed the recognition of the consequence of independence — the free navigation of the seas. Upon this tender point, the progress of the negotia- tions was arrested.* At length, after two years of discussion and vicissitude, the conferences which had kept Europe in suspense re- 9 .\prii. suited in the signing, at the Town Hall at Antwerp, on the ninth of April, 1609, of a truce for a term of twelve years, instead of a definitive peace. The fulfillment of the treaty was guaranteed by England and France ; the United Netherlands were declared to be " free countries, provinces, and states," upon which Philip and the archdukes had no claim ; mutual freedom of trade between the contracting parties was established ; and, by a secret article, the King of Spain engaged to offer no interruption to the commerce of the Dutch with India. The truce, after being ratified by the archdukes at Brussels, and by the States G-eneral, who were specially convened at Bergen-op-Zoom, was pub- is April, licly proclaimed at Antwerp and the other chief towns of Flanders, amid demonstrations of universal joy, the ring- ing of bells, and salvos of artillery. The great bell at Ant- werp, which had not sounded for many years, was rung by twenty-four men, and its glad peal was heard twelve miles off, at Ordam and Lillo. The priests chaunted " Te Deum * Grotius, XV., 716; Van Meteren, xxviii., 608; xxix., 626-630; Watson's Philip II., iii., 217, 241 ; Davies, ii., 405-427. INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY OF THE DUTCH. 41 Laudamus ;" the inhabitants of the towns promenaded chap. n. outside of the walls, like newly-liberated prisoners; and boat-loads of passengers came through the canals, from Zealand and Holland, to visit friends whom they had not seen for a long generation. But the now martial people of the Northern United Provinces tempered their triumph by a recollection of the sufferings which they and their fathers had undergone. The States General proclaimed a solemn fast; and the day was religiously celebrated in alloiMio. the churches of the United Netherlands by hearty prayers " that the Provinces might be maintained and preserved in a firm union, amity, and correspondence, under a properly authorized government."* By foreign nations, the publication of the truce was re- ceived with astonishment and admiration. They could scarcely persuade themselves that the haughty Spaniard could ever be forced to acknowledge the independence and sovereignty of his rebel subjects, and tacitly allow them a free trade to India. But no sooner had the ratifications of the treaty been exchanged, than the powers of Europe and Asia formed new estimates of the resources of the Dutch, and of the wisdom and energy of their counsels, and immediately began to vie with each other in courting their alliance and invoking their support. Soon after the signature of the treaty, the States General sent the Sieur de Schoonewalle on an embassy to England. The king received him at once "as ambassador of a free country 12 juiy. and state," and immediately commissioned his Master of Requests, Sir Ralph Winwood, to reside in Holland as his ordinary ambassador. Thenceforward, the Dutch were universally esteemed "as a free and independent people. Having gained immortal honor by the magnanimity which they had displayed during the continuance of the war, they were now considered as having obtained the reward * Corps Dip., v., 99-102 ; Grotius, xviii., 812 ; Van Meteren, xxx., G58. The proclama- tion by government authority, in this state, of days of fasting and days of thanltsgiving, was a custom derived from Holland. Frequent instances in which the directors of New Netherland imitated the pious example of the Fatherland, will be found in the following pages. 42 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. (;hap. II. which their virtue merited, and were every where respect- ed and admired. Their ministers at foreign courts were now received with the same distinction as those of other sovereign powers."* It is a somewhat singular coinci- dence, that the treaty was signed just three days after Hudson had sailed from the Texel on his voyage of dis- covery. So far, therefore, as England, France, and Spain were concerned, the nationality and sovereignty of the United Provinces were recognized with sufficient distinct- ness at the period of Hudson's voyage ; and the Dutch were certainly, from that time forward, abundantly competent to take and enjoy any rights derived from discovery under the law of nations.! Hudson's Hudson himself never revisited the pleasant lands he loiiic '' had discovered and extolled. The hardy mariner, still isnsiish intent on solving the problem of the northern passage to service. __ China, and prevented by the jealousy of English authority from leaving his native country to engage again in enter- prises for the benefit of foreigners, re-entered the service of his early London patrons, and sailed from the Thames in " The Discovery," on his last and fatal vo3'^age to the 1610. north, in the spring of 1610. Passing Iceland, where he i: April, saw the famous Hecla " cast out much fire," he doubled the southern Cape of Greenland, and penetrated through Davis's Straits into the vast and gloomy waters beyond. While Hudson's recent companions in the Half Moon were, under another chief, renewing a happy intercourse with the native savages along the River of the Mountains, the intrepid navigator himself was buffeting with arctic tem- pests, in fruitless efforts to explore the "labyrinth without * Van Meteren, xxxi., 662 ; Wat.son, iii., 278 ; Davies, ii., 427-439. t Chalmers, Pol. Ann., 568, intimates doubts on this subject. But this biased annal- ist, though a standard authority on many points, must be read with great caution in all that he writes with reference to the early history of New York. His strong English prej- udices constantly led him into serious misstatements in regard to the discoveries of other nations. The shores of New Jersey and New York had certainly not been "often ex- plored" before Hudson's voyage. Cabot can not strictly and fairly be said to have "ex- plored" a coast which he seems to have seen only occasionally. And what is the evi- dence that he took " formal possession" of any part south of Newfoundland 7 Of Euro- peans, Vera7.7.ano alone, who merely looked into the beautiful harbor of New York, was really the predecessor of Hudson. Holmes, i., 135, 1,16, follows Chalmers, and repeats his errors. THE FUR TRADE OF HOLLAND. 43 end" in which he had become involved. At length, after chap. n. spending a dreary winter of suffering and privation on the frozen coast, he was basely abandoned by liis mutinous crew on midsummer's day, 1611, in a forlorn shallop, in 1611. the midst of fields of ice, to perish miserably in that sullen iiurisons and inhospitable Bay, the undying name of which perpet- uates the memory of his inflexible daring.* The Half Moon having, as we have seen, been detained tuo iiaii ^ . Moon n-- eight months in Encjland, did not reach Amsterdam until turns to the summer of 1610, and the directors of the East India >^'">\ Company, indisposed to continue efforts in a quarter which ,5 ,J|^ ' did not seem to promise the coveted passage to Cathay, and which was not strictly within the limits of their char- ter, took no further steps to make available the discoveries which their yacht had effected.! But, meanwhile, if the glowing account of the country uuuti en- terprise ex- he had visited, which Hudson sent from England to his cited. Dutch patrons, corroborated by his companions in discov- ery, on the Half Moon's return to Amsterdam, did not at once induce active efforts to transfer to those pleasant re- gions permanent colonies from the over-populated Father- land, it did not fail to stimulate commercial adventure in a quarter which promised to yield large returns. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, in the midst of their war with Spain, the Dutch had opened a prosper- Tiuir nir ous commerce at Archangel ; and, in 1604, they had ob- Russia. tained from the Czar concessions of such a liberal charac- ter as to attract to that port from sixty to eighty Holland ships every year. From Archangel, their traders had in- tercourse with Novogorod and the great inland towns, and carried on a large traffic in the furs of ancient Muscovy. The wise simplicity of the first Russian tariff laid a duty of five per cent, on all imported goods, and allowed an ' N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., 146-188. t The subsequent career of the Half Moon may, perhaps, interest the curious. The small " ship book," before referred to, which I found, in 1841, in the company's archives at Amsterdam, besides recording the return of the yacht on the 15th of July, 1610, states that on the 2d of May, 1611, she sailed, in company with other vessels, to the East Indies, under the command of Laurens Reael ; and that on the 6th of March, 1615, she was " wrecked and lost"' on the island of Mauritius. 44 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. equivalent amount to be exported duty free. "Whoever ex- ported more than he imported, paid a duty of five per cent. ' on the difference.* A new temptation was unexpectedly offered to the ex- panding commerce of Holland. Vast regions in North America, which Hudson had seen abounding in beaver and other valuable furs, and where native hunters, unre- strained by arbitrary regulations of excise, furnished ready and exhaustless cargoes, were now open to Dutch mercan- tile enterprise. The tempting opportunity was not neg- Another lectcd, Auothcr vessel was immediately fitted out, and ship sent ^° ■,. ■, -, /-n r\ ^ Manhattan, dispatchcd ffom the Texel in the summer of 1610, to the great River of the Mountains, with a cargo of goods suit- able for traffic with the Indians. The new adventure was undertaken at the private risk of some merchants of Am- sterdam,! who, perhaps, as directors of the East India Company, had read Hudson's report to his Dutch employ- 15 July. ers. The Half Moon had now just returned to Amster- dam after her long detention in England. A part of her old crew manned the new vessel, the command of which was probably intrusted to Hudson's Dutch mate, who had opposed his early return ;t and the experienced mariners soon revisited the savages on the great river, whom they Tradition had left thc autumii before. Tradition relates, that when asi^sre- thc Europcans arrived again among the red men, "they her voyage, were mucli rcjoiccd at seeing each other." ^ Meanwhile, the occupation of Virginia by the English had become well known in Holland, and the States Gren- eral, through Caron, their ambassador at London, had even Overtures made ovcrturcs to the British government " for joining Dutcii to with them in that colony." A proposition had also been the English . ,t-. tt icii respecting made to unite the East India trade of the two countries. But the statesmen of England would not favor either of * Richcsse de la IloUande, i., 51 ; McCuUagh's Industrial History, ii., 255. t Do Laet, book iii., cap. vii. ; Albany Records, xxiv., 167. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the statements in Smith's History of New York, i., 2, 3, respecting Hudson having " sold the country, or rather hia right, to the Dutch," &c., are utterly fabulous. t Muilkerk, A., 19. 1) Hoi. Doc, i., 211 ; Ileckcwelder, in ii. N. Y. H. S. Coll., i., p. 73 ; and in Yates and Moulton, i., p. 251. See also Appendix, note C. CHRISTIAENSEN AND BLOCK AT MANHATTAN. 4.j the Dutch projects. They feared, they said, "that in case chap, ii of joining, if it be upon equal terms, the art and industry of their people will wear out ours."* The theory of a northern passage to China by way of The diucIi Nova Zembla had continued, in the mean time, to be again toex- warmly supported by many learned men in Holland, northern Among these was Peter Plancius, of Amsterdam, who, like china, his contemporary Hakluyt, was distinguished no less as a clergyman than as a promoter of maritime enterprise. Plancius insisted that Heemskerk had failed in 1596, be- cause he attempted to go tlirough the Straits of AVeygat, instead of keeping to the north of the island. In compli- ance with Plancius's opinion, the States Greneral, early in 1611, directed that two vessels, the "Little Fox" and the 1611. " Little Crane," should be furnished with passports for voy- ^' ^'^^' ages to discover a northern passage to China. But the ice arrested the vessels long before they could reach the 80th degree of latitude, to which they were ordered to proceed.t About the same time, Hendrick Christiaensen, of Cleef, christiaen- or Cleves, near Nymegen, returning to Holland from a voy- voyase to age to the West Indies, found himself in the neighborhood of the newly-discovered river, which the Dutch had already begun to call the "Mauritius," in honor of their stadthold- er. Prince Maurice, of Nassau. But deterred by the fear of losing his heavily-laden vessel, and remembering that a ship from Monichendam, in North Holland, had been cast away on that coast, Christiaensen did not venture into the river at that time, reserving the enterprise for a future oc- casion. On his arrival in Holland, Christiaensen, in com- christi!i<-n pany with another " worthy"' mariner, Adriaen Block, ac- Blocks cordingly chartered a ship, "with the schipper Ryser, and age. * Winwood's Memorial, iii., 239 ; Extract of a letter from Mr. John More to Sir Ralph Winwood (English ambassador at the Hague), dated London, 15th December, 1610. " So soon as the Hector (now ready to hoist sail) shall be set forth of this haven towards Vir- ginia, Sir Tliomas Gates will hasten to the Hague, where he will confer with the States about the overture that Sir Noel Caron hath made for joining with us in that colony. Sir Noel hath also made a motion to join their East India trade with ours ; but we fear that in case of joining, if it be upon equal terms, the art and industry of their people will wear out ours." t Uol. Doc, i., 12; Van Meteren, xxxii., 715 ; DaTies, ii., 294, 743 ; Neg. de Jeannin, Ui., 294. 46 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. accomplished his voyage thither, bringing back with him two sons of the chiefs there."* The reports which the comrades made on their return to Holland, and the personal presence of the two young savages, named " Orson and Valentine," whom they had brought over as specimens of the inhabitants of the New World, added a fresh impulse to the awakened enterprise Public at- of the Dutch merchants. Public attention in the Nether- Hoiiand lauds soou bccame alive to the importance of the newly- ' discovered regions in North America. A memorial upon the subject was presented to the Provincial States of Hol- T sepi. land and West Friesland by " several merchants and in- habitants of the United Provinces ;" and it was judged of sufficient consequence to be formally communicated to the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enck- huysen.t 1612. The experience which Christiaensen and Block had now gained, naturally recommended them for further employ- ment. Three influential and enterprising merchants of Ships sent Amsterdam, Hans Hongers, Paulus Pelgrom, and Lam- iVom Am- mifiTT stertiainto brccht vau Tweenhuvscn — oi whom Honorers was a di- Manhattan • i -n t t />i i • i under rcctor m the East India Company — soon determmed to Cliristiaen- ., , f -i r i i • i rr i sen and avail tliemselvcs of the favorable opportunity thus onered Block. . . . 1 1 Ti to their enterprise. Equipping two vessels, " the Fortune" and " the Tiger," they intrusted the respective commands to Christiaensen and to Block, and dispatched them to the island of Manhattan, to renew and continue their traffic with the savages along the Mauritius River. Other merchants in North Holland soon joined in the other ships trade. The "Little Fox," under the charge of Captain John De Witt, and the " Nightingale," under Captain Thya 1613. Volckertsen, were fitted out by the Witsens and other prom- inent merchants of Amsterdam ; while the owners of the * Wassenaar's " Historische Verhael," &c., viii., 65 ; Muilkerk, A, 21. Wassenaar'.s work has hitherto been unknown to our historians. In 1818, 1 was fortunate enough to procure a copy in London, from which a sliort " Memoir of the Early Colonization of New Nethcrland" was prepared and published in N. Y. II. S. Coll. (second series), ii., 355. A translation of some extracts from Wassenaar has just appeared in Boc. Hist. N. Y., iii., 27-48. The precise date of Christiaenscn's first voyage is not given. t IIol. Doc, i., 14 ; Wassenaar, i.x., 44. CONDITION OF MANHATTAN ISLAND. 47 ship " Fortune," of Hoorn — the city which was soon to give chap. ii. its immortal name to the southern Cape of America — dis-" ~ patched their vessel, in charge of Captain Cornelis Jacob- sen May, to participate in the enterprise of their metropol- itan friends, on the Mauritius River.* The admirable commercial position of Manhattan Isl- commei- and soon indicated it, by common consent, as the proper ance of point whence the furs collected in the interior could be perceived. most readily shipped to Holland. To secure the largest advantages from the Indian traffic, it was, nevertheless, perceived that inland depots would become indispensable. Thus, cargoes of furs could be collected during the winter, so as to be ready for shipment when the vessels had been refitted, after their arrival out in the spring. Manhattan Island, at this time, was in a state of nature; herbage was condition wild and luxuriant; but no cattle browsed in its fertile and.*' valleys, and the native deer had been almost exterminated by the Indians. The careful kindness of the Dutch mer- chants endeavored to remedy, as well as possible, the want of domestic animals for the use of their solitary trad- ers ; and Hendrick Christiaensen, by his ship-owners' di- rection, took along with him, in one of his voyages, a few goats and rabbits to multiply at Manhattan. But these animals — the first sent from Holland to New York — were soon poisoned by the wild verdure, to which they were un- accustomed.! Up to this time, the Dutch traders had pursued their xue Dutch lucrative traffic in peltry, without question or interruption. qu°ainted" No European vessels but theirs had yet visited the regions North n't- around the Mauritius River. Their ships returned to Hoi- Rh""""'' land freighted with large cargoes of valuable furs, which * llol. Doc, i., 39 ; Muilkerk, A, 24. The " Little Fox" was probably the same vessel which had been sent to Nova Zembia in 1011. t Wassenaar, ix., 44. It seems from Wassenaar's account, that the native species of dogs, in New Netherland, was quite small ; for when Lambrecht van Tweenhuyson, one of the owners of Christiaensen and Block's ships, gave one of these captains a " large dog" to take out with him, the Indians, coming on board the ship, were very much afraid of the animal, and called him "the sachem of the dogs," because he was one of the largest they had ever seen. The translation in Doc. Ilisl. N. Y., iii., 40, is inaccurate. Van Tweenhuysen gave the dog to his schipper ; he was not a " schipper" himself, but a '• Feeder," or ship-owner, and he does not appear ever to have visited Manhattan. 48 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. c iiAi'. II. yielded enormous profits to tlieir owners. From Manhat- "~~~~ t^'^j small trading shallops were dispatched into the neigh- '"*■ boring creeks and bays of " Scheyichbi," or New Jersey, and up the Mauritius River, as far as the head of naviga- tion. The Dutch had been the first, and, hitherto, the only Europeans to visit the Indian tribes in these regions, with all of whom they had continued to maintain a friendly and cordial intercourse. But while the Holland merchants pro- moted new explorations, they do not appear, as yet, to have directed the construction of permanent defenses ; although it has been said that, " before the year 1614," one or two small forts were built on the river for the protection of the growing peltry trade.* Loss of By accident, Adriaen Block's ship, the Tiger, was bum- mock's 111/r1 1-11 • XT! .ship, and ed at Manhattan, while he was preparing to return to Hol- « yacht at land. Undismayed by his misfortune, the persevering mar- .M;inhatt!in. i •, t i ,-1 i ■ ii mer set about building a small yacht, out of the admirable ship timber with which the island abounded. This work occupied Block during the winter of 1613, and until the spring of 1614. To accommodate himself and his corn- First cab- panions during their cheerless solitude, a few huts were the island. HOW first crcctcd near the southern point of Manhattan Island ; and, in the absence of all succor from Holland, the friendly natives supplied the Dvitch, through a dreary win- ter, "with food and all kinds of necessaries."! * In a memorial to the States General, dated 25th of October, 1034, the West India Com- pany say, that " under the chief command of your High Mightinesses, before the year 1614, there were one or two little forts built there, and provided with garrisons for the protection of the trade." — Hoi. Doc, ii., 138. Dc Laet, however, who wrote in 1024 — ten years before the company's memorial — distinctly states that one small fort was built " in the year 1014," upon an island in the upper part of the river. In another place he says it was built in 1015.— De Laet, book iii., cap. vii., ix. For various reasons, which will bo exhibited further on, I think there was only one fort built ; that it was on " Castle Island," near Albany ; and that it was erected in 1014. t De Laet, book iii., cap. x. ; De Vries, 181 ; " Hreedcn Raedt aen de Verceinghde Ne- derlandsche Provintien," &c., p. 14, 15. This latter very rare tract (for the use of which I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Campbell, the deputy librarian at the Hague) is now for the first time quoted in our history. The statement in the Ureeden Raedt, of the In- dians thbmselves, is that " when our people (the Dutch) had lost a certain ship there, and were building another new ship, they (the savages) assisted our people with food and all kinds of necessaries, and provided for them, thrmtsrh two urintcrx, until the ship was fin- ished." Dc Laet, in his later editions of 1033 and 1040 (book iii., cap. vii.), says, that to carry on trade with the natives, "our people remained there during winter." De Vries, p. 181, repeats the same statement. The account in the Breeden Raedt, that Block btdlt his yacht during the xfinter, seems thus to be fully confirmed. That the vessel was bniU THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA. 49 The infant colony of Virginia had, meanwhile, suffered chap. ii. strange vicissitudes. Under the second charter of King James, which passed the great seal early in 1G09, Thomas Virginia af- Lord Delawarr was appointed governor for life ; Sir Thomas 23'Mav. G-ates, lieutenant governor ; Sir Greorge Somers, admiral ; and Christopher Newport, vice-admiral. An expedition, consisting of nine vessels, was equipped and dispatched for Virginia, with five hundred emigrants, a few days before the charter was actually sealed. Lord Delawarr himself 15 May. did not leave England with the expedition ; but he dele- gated the command, in the interim, to Grates, Somers, and Newport.* When near the end of their voyage, a hurricane sepa- rated the ship in which the three commissioners had em- barked from the rest of the squadron, and wrecked it on shipwreck Bermuda.! The remnant of the fleet reached Virginia to- d". ward the end of the summer ; and to avoid anarchy, John 11 Augu.st. Smith, who had now been two years in the colony, assumed the chief command, in the absence of the newly-commis- sioned officers, whose fate was yet unknown. But the new colonists consisted of " many unruly gallants, packed hither by their friends to escape ill destinies." Against every pos- sible discouragement. Smith resolutely maintained his au- thority, and his influence introduced something like order among the unruly emigrants. At length, an accidental ex- plosion of gunpowder, which mangled his person, disabled him from duty, and obliged him to return home for surgical aid. Disgusted at the opposition he had met with in the smith re- colony, which owed him so much, the " Father of Virginia" England. delegated his authority to Greorge Percy, and embarked for October England, a few weeks after Hudson had set sail for Eu- rope with the news of his grand discovery. I In the mean time, G-ates and his companions, who had been cast away on Bermuda, had subsisted upon the nat- during the winter of 1G13, and was finished and used in the spring of 1614, seems also cer- tain from Hoi. Doc, i., 47, 53. * Smith, i., 233 ; Purchas, iv., 1729. t Strachcy's account of this shipwreck in Purchas, iv., 1734, is supposed by Malone to be the foundation of Shakspeare's " Tempest." This opinion, however, has recently beea controverted. t Smith, i., 239 ; ii., 108- D 50 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. ural products of that fertile island, the luxuriance of which afterward won from Waller the matchless panegyric, Gates sails " Heaven sure has left this spot of earth uncurs'd, from Ber- To show how all things were created first." muda to Virginia. j)yj.ii^g ^j^g autumu and winter, with admirable persever- ance they constructed two small pinnaces out of the wreck of their old ship and the cedars which they felled on the island. After a nine months' sojourn in their delightful abode, they embarked in these vessels, in the spring of 1610. 1610, and in a few days arrived safely at Jamestown. 33 May. -g^^ instead of a happy welcome, they met a scene of mis- The"starv- erv, and famine, and death. The four hundred and ninety ing time" '' I . . .•' 1.1 Virginia, persons whoHi Smith had left in the colony, had, in six months, tlu'ough vice and starvation, dwindled down to sixty. In their extremity of distress, they all now determ- ined to desert Virginia, and seek safety and food among the English fishermen at Newfoundland. Embarking in 6 June. four piniiaces, the colonists bade adieu to Jamestown. " None dropped a tear, for none had enjoyed a day of hap- piness."* Arrival of But uncxpectcd rclicf was at hand. After nearly a warr. year's delay in England, Lord Delawarr embarked at Cowes on the first of April, 1610, and set sail for Virginia with three vessels laden with supplies. The squadron fol- lowed the old route, by the roundabout way of Terceira and Grratiosa ; and, early in June, Lord Delawarr first made the land " to the southward of the Chesapeake Bay." Running 6 June. in toward the shore, he anchored over night at Cape Hen- 7 June. ry^ where he landed and set up a cross. The next morn- ing he sailed up the» Chesapeake to Point Comfort, where he heard the sorrowful tale of "the starving time." At that very moment, the pinnaces conveying the remnant of the dispirited colony were slowly falling down the James River with the tide. The governor instantly dispatched a boat with letters to Gates announcing his arrival. The 9 June. next day, the pinnaces were met descending the river ; and * Cbalmers, 30 ; Bancroft, i., 137-140. ARGALL AT DELAWARE BAY. 5J G-ates immediately putting about, relanded his men the chap. ii. same night at Jamestown. Lord Delawarr soon arrived before the town with his jq j„nc ' ship; and, after a sermon by the chaplain, commenced the task of regenerating the colony. A council was sworn in ; " the evils of faction were healed by the unity of the ad- ministration, and the dignity and virtues of the governor ;" and the rejoicing colonists now began to attend to their duties with energy and good- will. To supply pressing lo June, want. Sir Greorge Somers was promptly dispatched with somers and Samuel Argall, "a young sea-captain of coarse passions pauhed to and arbitrary temper," in two pinnaces, to procure fish and turtle at Bermuda.* After being a month at sea, the pinnaces parted com- pany in a fog ; and Argall, despairing of rejoining his com- 2: .luiy. rade, made the best of his way back to Virginia. Falling in with Cape Cod, he sailed to the southward, and in a 10 August. week found himself again within twelve leagues of the shore. Early the next morninsr, he anchored " in a very 27 August. 1 c 1 1 • 1 Argall an- great bay," where he found " a great store of people which cuors in were very kind." The same evening, Argall sailed for the warr's Chesapeake, after naming the southern point of the bay in which he had anchored, " Cape La Warre." This Cape is now known as Cape Henlopen. The bay itself, which Hudson, in the Half Moon, had discovered just one year before, was soon commonly called by the English " Dela- warr's Bay," in honor of the Governor of Virginia ; but, notwithstanding received statements, there is no evidence Lord Deia- that Lord Delawarr himself ever saw the waters which tuere inm- now bear his name.t Prosperity at length began to smile on Virginia. But Lord Delawarr, finding his health sinking under the cares of his office and the effects of the climate, sailed for En- 28 March. gland in the spring of 1611; and G-ates having previously rctum.s to returned to London,1: the administration of the colonial gov- * Lord Delawarr's letter of 7th of July, 1010, in MS. Ilarl. Brit. Museum, 7009, fol. 58, printed by the Hakluyt Society ; Purchas, iv., 1754 ; Bancroft, i.. Ml. t Argall's Journal, in Purchas, iv., 1762; Strachey's Virginia Britannia, 43 ; De Vrics. 109, 110. See Appendix, note D. I Winwood's Memorial, iii., 239. 52 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap 11 emmeiit was committed, during his absence, to Captain ' Greorge Percy. Soon after Delawarr's departure, Sir Thom- ■ as Dale, " a worthy and experienced soldier in the Low Countries," to whom, at the request of the Prince of "Wales, 20 January, the Statcs Grcneral had just granted a three years' leave of absence from their service to go to Virginia,* arrived at 20 May. Jamcstown, and assumed the government. Finding that the colony needed more assistance, he wrote at once to England. Lord Delawarr, on his return home, confirmed Dale's accounts ; and, with unusual promptness, the coun- cil at London dispatched six ships to Virginia, with three hundred new emigrants and large supplies. Adminis- Sir Tliomas Grates, who, like Dale, had served in the Gates. Netherlands, and, in 1608, had been allowed by the States General to resign the commission he held in Holland, " to take command in the country of Virginia, and to "colonize the same,"t was now sent out with the new expedition, invested with full authority as lieutenant governor, and August, arrived safely at Jamestown in August. Under his care- ful administration, the English settlements on the Chesa- peake rapidly prospered, and soon appeared to be firmly 1613. established. In the summer of 1613, Captain Argall, who had been sworn by Lord Delawarr one of the colonial council, while on a fishing voyage from Virginia to Nova Argall on Scotia, was overtaken by a storm, and driven ashore on the the coast of /.■»■■• tt ii ic itt i Maine. coast of Maine. Here he learned from the Indians that some French colonists had just arrived at the island of Mount Desert, a little to the eastward of the Penobscot. On this island, the Jesuit missionaries in the company, aft- er giving thanks to the Most High, had erected a cross, and celebrated a solemn mass. The island itself they had His piratic named "Saint Sauveur." Ascertaining the weakness of aj pjocee - ^^^ Ppench, Argall hastened to their quiet retreat, and soon French * overpowcrcd them by his superior force. De Thet, one of S'."" the Jesuit fathers, was killed by a musket-ball ; several others were wounded ; " the cross round which the faith- ful had gathered was thrown down ;" and Argall returned * Hoi. Doc, i., 6. t Ibid., i., 5. See also ante, page 45, note. ARGALL ON THE COAST OF MAINE. 53 to Virginia with eighteen prisoners, and the plunder of a ciur. n. peaceful colony, which the pious zeal of Madame de Guercheville had sent to America to convert the savages to Christianity. Gates no sooner received the report of this piratical ad- Arsaii * again at venture of his subordinate, than, by the advice of his coun- Maine and ' ' '' . . Nova Sco- cil, he determined to undertake a new enterprise agamst na. the French in Acadia, and destroy all their settlements south of the forty-sixth degree of latitude. Three armed vessels were immediately dispatched, under the command of Argall ; who, returning to the scene of his former out- rage at Mount Desert, set up the arms of the King of En- gland, in place of the broken cross of the Jesuits. Argall next visited St. Croix, and destroyed the remnants of De Monts' former settlement. Thence he sailed to Port Roy- al. Meeting no resistance there, Argall loaded his ships with the spoil of the ruined town ; and having thus effect- 9 Nov ed all his purposes, he returned to Virginia about the mid- dle of November."* The pretext under which Argall had been dispatched to Pretexts for i-i- 1 1 1 r I 1- 1 his piratic- gather mglorious laurels on the coasts of Acadia, was the ai proceed- alleged encroachment of the French settlers there upon the territory comprehended within James's sweeping gi*ant, in 1606, to the London and Plymouth adventurers. Gates naturally leaned toward the most grasping interpretation of an instrument in which he was named first among the original grantees of an enormous monopoly. But James's patent, nevertheless, distinctly excepted from its purview all lands "possessed by any other Christian prince or peo- ple ;" and the French had unquestionably been in quiet possession of the neighborhood of Acadia two years before the first English charter passed the great seal. By his second charter of 1609, James had also expressly restrict- ed the Virginia Company's northern boundary to a line two hundred miles north of Point Comfort, or about the fortieth parallel of latitude. The predatory proceedings of Gates and Argall were, therefore, entirely unwarranta- * Champlain, 101-109; Lescarbot; Bancrort, i., 148. §4 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. blc j and they were promptly resented by the court of France. As soon as intellisrence of the outrasfe reached 1 r*! Q Complaints Europc, the French ambassador at London made a formal French am- compkint to the English government. The privy council J p^^^jg""" "^^ immediately demanded explanations from the Vii-ginia 1614. Company ; who excused themselves by stating in reply, .lanuary. ^j^^^ they had received no information from Virginia "of any such misdemeanors."* 1613. On his return voyage from Acadia to Virginia, late in November. November, Argall is said to have " landed at Manhatas Alleged vis- Isle in Hudson's River," where, finding "four houses it of Argall ' 770 to Manhat- jjuilt, and a pretended Dutch governor," he forced the Hol- landers to submit themselves to the King of England and to the government of Virginia. But this favorite story is very suspicious ; it is inconsistent with authentic state papers ; it has been deliberately pronounced to be "a pure fiction ;" and it certainly needs to be sustained by better authority than any that has yet been produced, before it can be received as an historical truth.! 1614. In the spring of 1614, explorations began to be vigor- DutciTte-'^ously prosecuted around Manhattan, by the several trading covery. ycsscls wliich had been dispatched from Holland. De "Witt, sailing up the Mauritius River, in the " Little Fox," gave his name to one of the islands near Red Hook^, May, in the " Fortune," coasting eastward, beyond the Visscher's Hook, or Montauk Point, visited a large " white and clay- ey" island, around which Gosnold had sailed twelve years before. This island, the Indian name of which was Ca- packe, the Dutch for awhile called " the Texel;" but it is now known as Martha's Vineyard. t By this time, it was perceived that, to secure the larg- est return from the peltry trade, a factor should reside per- manently on the Mauritius River, among the Maquaas, or Mohawks, and the Mahicans, at the head of tide-water. * Champlain, 112; Lond. Doc, i., 1, 3; N. Y. Colonial Manuscripts, iii., 1, 2. t See Appendix, note E. t De Laet.book iii., cap. viii. On Visscher's and Van der Donck's maps of New Noth- erland, there is an island in the North River, marked " Jan de Witt's Eylant," just nonh of Magdalen Island. Jan de Witt's Island is the small one just south of Upper Red Hook landing, or Tivoli ; Magdalen Island is the larger one next below. THE YACHT RESTLESS, OF MANHATTAN. §5 Hendrick Christiaensen, who, after his first experiment in chap. ii. company with Adriaen Block, is stated to have made " ten voyages" to Manhattan, accordingly constructed a trading chnstiaen- liouse on " Castle Island," at the west side of the river, Q-fl^Fonj^H^^- little below the present city of Albany. This building, fipp-e'/parl'" wliich was meant to combine the double purposes of a"'***^""" warehouse and a military defense for the resident Dutch traders, was thirty-six feet long, by twenty-six feet wide, inclosed by a stockade fifty-eight feet square, and the whole surrounded by a moat eighteen feet in width. To compliment the family of the stadtholder, the little post was immediately named " Fort Nassau." It was armed with two large guns, and eleven swivels or patereros, and garrisoned by ten or twelve men. " Hendrick Clnristiaen- sen first commanded here ;" and, in his absence, Jacob Eelkens, formerly a clerk in the counting-house of an Am- sterdam merchant.* It has been confidently affirmed that the year after the No fon at -_ .. __ iTi 1 111^ Manhattan. erection of Fort Nassau, at Castle island, a redoubt was also throwTi up and fortified "on an elevated spot," near the southern point of Manhattan Island. But the assertion does not appear to be confirmed by sufficient authority.! Adriaen Block had, meanwhile, completed the building Block com- of his yacht, which he appropriately named the Ofirust, yacu,"ii\e or " Restless." "With this small vessel, about sixteen tons in burden, and the first ever constructed by Europeans at Manhattan, t Block proceeded to explore the bays and riv- ers to the eastward, into which the larger ships of the Dutch * Figurative Map, from the archives at the Hague ; Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii.,27, 38 ; Wasse- naar, vi., 144 ; viii., 85 ; De Laet, book iii., cap. ix. ; De Vries, 113 ; IIol. Doc, ii., 136 ; Alb. Rec, xxii., 317 ; xxiv., 167 ; Smith's Hist. N. Y., i., 22. Castle Island was the first below Albany, and, after 1630, was known as Van Rensselaer's, or Patroon's Island. The rapid progress of improvement has, however, now nearly obliterated its former insu- lar character, and " annexed" it to the thriving capital of our state. t See Appendix, note F. t The " Restless" was forty-four and a half feet long, eleven and a half feet wide, and of about eight lasts or sixteen tons burden. — De Laet, book iii., cap. x. ; Hoi. Doc, i., 53. Mr. Cooper, in his Naval History (i., p. 41), speaks of Block's yacht as "the first decked vessel built within the old United States." But the honor of precedence in American na- val architecture must, fairly, be yielded to Popham's unfortunate colony on the Kenne- beck. The " Virginia, of Sagadahoc," was the first European-built vessel within the original Thirteen States — if Maine be considered as part of Massachusetts. The " Rest- less, of Manhattan," was the pioneer craft of New York ;36 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. traders had not yet ventured. Sailing boldly through the then dano^erous strait of " the Hell-s^ate,"* into "the Great g^i3 ■ Bay," or Long Island Sound, he carefully " explored all the iicil-gate places thereabout," as far as Cape Cod. Coasting along Island""^ the northern shore, inhabited by the Siwanoos, Bloek gave Sound. ^YiQ name of " Archipelagos" to the group of islands oppo- Discovers sltc Norwalk. At the present town of Stratford, he visit- the Ilousa- tonic. ed the " River of Roodenberg," or Red Hills, now known as the Housatonic, which he described as about " a bow- shot wide," and in the neighborhood of which dwelt the indolent tribe of Quiripey Indians. Passing eastward along the bay at the head of which New Haven now stands, and which, on account of the red sandstone hills in its neighborhood, the Dutch also soon called the "Roo- Expiores dcnbers:," Block came to the mouth of a large river run- theConnec- ^^ '^ ticut River, ning up northerly into the land. At its entrance into the Sound it was " very shallow ;" and Block, observing that there were but few inhabitants near its mouth, ascended the river to the rapids, at the head of navigation. Near Wethersfield, he found the numerous Indian tribe of Se- quins. At the latitude of 41° 48' — ^between Hartford and Windsor — he came to a fortified village of the Nawaas tribe, who were then governed by their Sagamore Mora- hieck. Hero he heard of "another nation of savages, who are called Horikans," dwelling " within the land," proba- bly near the lakes west of the upper part of the river, and who navigated the waters "in canoes made of bark." From the circumstance that a strong downward current was perceived at a short distance above its mouth, Block immediately named this beautiful stream the "Versch," * " Our people (the Dutch) call this Inferni os, or the Wellc-gai," says the accurate De Laet. According to Block's account, as stated by De Laet, the Dutch likewise originally called the whole of what was soon more familiarly known as the " East River," by the name of the " Holl-gate River ;" and the currents from that river and from the North Riv- er arc described as "meeting one another near Nutten (Governor's) Island." A branch of the Scheldt, near Ilulst, in Zealand, is called the " Ilellegat," after which Clock proba- bly named the whirlpool through which he was the first known European pilot. Mod- ern squeamishness has endeavored to improve this expressive hi torioal appellation into " Ilurl-gate." But while modern science has overcome the nautical terrors of old Ilell- gate, it is to be hoped that u vicious modern conceit will not prevail to rob us of one of the few remaining memorial names of early New York. 1611. BLOCK EXPLORES LONG ISLAND SOUND. 57 or Fresh Water River. By the native savages it was call- chap, ii ed the " Connittecock," or Q,uonehtacut ; and the aborig- inal appellation survives to the present day, in the name of the river and the state of Connecticut.* Continuing his course eastward from the mouth of the uiock jis- covers lilt Connecticut, Block came to the "River of the Siccana- Thames mos," afterward called by the English the Pequod or Thames River, where he found the powerful tribe of Pe- quatoos or Pequods, who were " the enemies of the Wapa- noos," in possession of the country. From there, stretch- ing "over across the Sound," he visited the " Visscher's Hoeck," or " Cape de Baye," now known as Montauk Point, which he discovered to be the eastern extremity of " Sewan-hacky," or Long Island, "on which a nation of savages, who are called Matouwacks, have their abode." A little to the northeast of Montauk Point, he next visited visits a large island, to which the Dutch immediately gave the and." name of " Block's Island," in honor of their countryman.! Thence, following the track of Verazzano, Block ran across to Nassau, or Narragansett Bay, which he thorough- ly explored. The western entrance was named " Sloup Bay," and the eastern " Anchor Bay ;" while " an island * Do Laet, viii. ; IIol. Doc, vii., 72 ; Verbael van Bevcniinck, 607 ; Winthrop, i., 52. Trumbull, in his History of Connecticut (i., p. 31), affirms that "none of the ancient ad- venturers, who discovered the great continent of North America, or New England, made any discovery of this river. It does not appear that it was known to any civilized nation until some years after the settlement of the English and Dutch at Plymouth and New Netherland." Yet Hubbard (Mass. Coll., xv., 18, 170) distinctly states that the Dutch first discovered it ; and if Trumbull had consulted the accurate details of De Laet, he would have found the clearest evidence that Block explored not only the river, but the whole coast of Connecticut, in 1614, or six years before the first Puritan English colonists landed at Plymouth Rock. Bancroft, ii., 273, following Hubbard, says that " the discov- ery of Connecticut River is undoubtedly due to the Dutch." It would have been safe to have added that Block was " its first European navigator." t It has been usual to consider Block as the first discoverer of the island which still bears his name. But while we thus honor the memory of the explorer of Long Island .Sound, we should not forget to do justice to his predecessor Verazzano, who, in 1524, after sailing along the Atlantic coast of Long Island (which he took to be the main land), for fifty leagues eastward from Sandy Hook, " discovered an island of a triangular form, about ten leagues from the main land, in size about equal to the island of Rhodes." This island, which was undoubtedly Block Island, Verazzano named " Claudia," in honor of the mother of King Francis I. It is so laid down in Lock's map of 1582.— Ilakluyt So- ciety's " Divers Voyages," 55, 64 ; N. Y. II. S. Coll., i., 53 ; i. (second series), 40, 49. The editor of Ilakluyt, however, though he seems unable to reconcile Verazzano's account with the supposition that " Claudia" was Martha's Vineyard, does not appear to have thought of Block Island. 58 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Chap. II. of a reddish appearance" was observed lying within. This was soon known by the Dutch as "Roode" or Red Island, Ex lores' ^^^^^ which is derived the name of the present State of (JanfenDay R^ocle Island. Along the western shore of the bay dwelt fsiaiS'*"'*^ the tribe of Wapanoos, whom Block described as " strong of limb and of moderate size," but somewhat shy, "since they are not accustomed to trade with strangers." Run- ning out of the Narragansett, he stood across the mouth of Buzzard's Bay to the southward of the Elizabeth Isl- ands, formerly visited by Grosnold, and sailed by the large " white and clayey" island, commonly called " Texel" by the Dutch, and " Capacke" by others, and which is now known as Martha's Vineyard. South of the Texel, Block Visits Mar- observed another small island, which he immediately yard. ' ^ named " Hendrick Christiaensen's Island," in compliment to his early comrade. This island, which Gosnold had discovered, and named Martha's Vineyard, is now called " No Man's Land ;" while, with a happier fate. Block Isl- and, retaining to this day the name which the Dutch first gave it, preserves the memory of the hardy pioneer of Long Island Sound. Sailing onward through the "Zuyder Zee," to the north of the island of "Vlieland," or Nantucket, Block passed near the " Vlacke Hoeck," or Cape Malebarre, and ran along the shore of Cape Cod, until he reached its northern Block pass- point, wMch he named "Cape Bevechier." Thence he cfod.*'"' coasted along the " Fuyok," or ""Wyck Bay," or " Staten Bay" — which names the Dutch gave to the waters now known as Cape Cod Bay — and explored the shore of Mas- sachusetts as far north as "Pye Bay, as it is called by some of our navigators, in latitude 42° 30', to which the limits of New Netherland extend." This Pye Bay is now known Visits Hos- as Nahant Bay, iust north of Boston harbor, and, at the ion harbor ■ -r,, , ^ and Na- timc Block first visited it, "a numerous people' dwelt there, who were " extremely well-looking, but timid and shy of Christians," so that it required " some address to approach them."* * De Laet, book iii., cap. viii. ; ayite, p. 54; ii. N. Y. II. S. Coll., i., 292-297. It l^. hint BLOCK RETURNS TO HOLLAND. 59 On his return from Pye Bay to Cape Cod, Block fell in chap. ii with the ship of Hendrick Christiaensen, which seems, meanwhile, to have been sent around from Manhattan to ^3,^^^ ' the northward. Leaving there his yacht, the Restless, Relulgg'^t which had already done such good service, in charge of and re?unls Cornelis Hendricksen, to make further explorations on the'""""*"'^" coast. Block embarked in his old companion's ship, the For- tune, and returned with her to Holland, to report the dis- coveries which he and his fellow-navigators had made in the New World* In the mean time, the States General, anxious to encour- age the foreign commerce of Holland, had granted, early 27 January in 1614, a liberal charter to an association of merchants. The for prosecuting the whale fishery in the neighborhood of Company- Nova Zembla, and the exploration of a new passage to by the . . , . , 1 1 TV? 1 Stales Gen Chma. Of this association, which was named "the North- erai. ern Company," Lambrecht van Tweenhuysen, one of the owners of Block's ship, was an original director ; and among his subsequent associates were Samuel G-odyn, Nicholas Jacobsen Haringcarspel, and Thymen Jacobsen Hinlopen, whose names have also become historical in our annals. t The importance of a similar concession of privileges in favor of the merchants, at whose expense new avenues of trade were now being explored in the neighborhood of Man- hattan, was soon perceived; and the States of Holland 20 March* were petitioned to recommend the general government to pass an ordinance which should assure to all enterprising adventurers a monopoly, for a limited time, of the trade clear that Block sailed beyond Cape Cod to Pye Bay, as he gives its distance from the Lixard by his observations. See also the " Figurative Map," or chart, found in the archives at the Hague (no doubt the one to which Dc Lact refers on page 294), upon which Plym- outh harbor is marl