Remarks.

Accustomed as we are in the nineteenth century, to floods of newspapers and other periodicals, many of them far worse than useless, we can scarcely imagine the avidity with which the first efforts of the kind must have been greeted, with no other means of information from distant points than the product of the pen, or the relation of an occasional traveller.

CHAPTER XII.

NEW NETHERLANDS, UNTIL ITS FINAL TRANSFER TO

Henry Hudson.

ENGLAND.

Discovers the Hudson River.

THE Dutch partook of the desire of other commercial nations to discover a northwest passage to India. It was in one of the voyages made for this purpose, that the Hudson river was discovered and explored.

In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman, in the employ- 1609 ment of the Dutch East India Company, sailed in search of the long sought passage in a small vessel manned with Hollanders and Englishmen. Hudson had made two voyages to the arctic regions with the same object, and had been within eight degrees of the pole. Passing by Greenland he now sailed along the coast as far south as Virginia; then turning to the north, he discovered and examined Delaware Bay, and in five months after leaving Holland, anchored within Sandy Hook. Passing through the Narrows, ten days were employed in exploring the river as far as the site of the present city of Hudson, and a boat advanced to the site of Albany. Having completed the discovery, Hudson sailed down the river which now bears his name, and returned to Europe. Frequent intercourse had been held with the Indians who welcomed these strange visitors among them.

Although Hudson had not attained the object of his voyage, he gave a glowing account of his discoveries to the

1614

Trading establishments at Manhattan and Albany.

Dutch East India Company, but never himself revisited that part of the continent, and perished in one of his voyages amid seas of ice.

The Dutch claimed the country bordering on the Hudson river by right of discovery, and a vessel from Amsterdam was fitted out by a body of merchants to trade with the natives. The voyage was prosperous and was renewed. Thus commenced the trading establishment on the Island of Manhattan, now New York.

The States-general granted a patent for the exclusive trade of the newly-discovered lands, and in consequence, several ships sailed for America. Careful records of these voyages have not been preserved, but the coast appears to have been examined as far as Cape Cod, and the Connecticut river explored.

A trading station was established on an island just below the present city of Albany in 1615; and, although a fort had been erected on Manhattan Island, now New York, as yet there was no colony. Families had not emigrated; and it was not until 1621, when the disturbances at home had subsided, that the attention of the Dutch West India Company was turned toward colonization. In that year the Dutch republic granted them an extensive territory on both sides of the Hudson river, extending as far south as the Delaware, and east to the Connecticut.

For some years the settlement at Manhattan was little more than a trading establishment. Indians from a distance came to procure articles of European manufacture in exchange for their furs.

In 1627, a delegation was sent to the Pilgrims of Plymouth, proposing to establish a treaty of friendship and commerce. It was well received; but the Pilgrims, in common

Conveyance of laud by the Indians.

Good Hope.

with other English, questioned the right of the Dutch to the Hudson river, and recommended a treaty with England. With the expression of mutual good wishes the parties separated.

It had been stipulated by the Directors of the Company that the soil should be purchased of the Indians; and in 1629, a deed was ratified and duly recorded for the purchase 1629 of the territory extending from Cape Henlopen, thirty miles north. The opposite shore in New Jersey, Staten Island, the country round Hoboken, and the land from Albany to the mouth of the Mohawk, were also conveyed.

The Company had designed to favor colonization, and yet retain the trade of the province; and that the monopoly of the Dutch manufacturers might not be impaired, the colonists were forbidden to make any woollen, linen, or cotton fabrics.

An attempt was made to establish a colony in the tract on Delaware Bay, purchased from the natives. Vessels sailed laden with seeds, cattle and agricultural implements, and a settlement was planted near Lewistown. But those to whom the colony was entrusted during the absence of the founder, could not avoid contests with the Indians. The life of a chief was lost, and the death of every emigrant was the consequence.

The Dutch had been the first to discover the Connecticut. They had purchased of the natives the country around Hartford, and commenced a small settlement there called Good Hope, two years before the emigrants from Boston began the commonwealth of Connecticut. But this was not considered sufficient to secure the territory against other settlers on a soil which England claimed as her exclusive right. Altercations continued for years, until the Dutch were obliged to

New Sweden.

yield the land they had first visited, which they had also purchased from the natives, and where they had first traded.

The territory claimed by the Dutch was also encroached upon at its southern extremity. A commercial company, with the right of planting colonies, had been incorporated by the States of Sweden, and received the favor of the king, Gustavus Adolphus. Men of different nations were invited to join in the enterprise. Slave labor was not to be allowed. The Swedes appeared to be sensible of the advantages of free, compensated labor, performed by persons of intelligence.

In 1638, a little company of Swedes and Fins arrived in Delaware Bay. The Swedish government had provided them with provisions and merchandise for traffic with the 1638 natives. The lands from the southern cape to the falls in the river near Trenton, were purchased of the Indians; and near the mouth of Christiana Creek, within the limits of the present State of Delaware, they began their settlement. The plantations were gradually extended, and to preserve their ascendency over the Dutch, who protested against their occupancy of the land, the governor established his residence at Tinicum, a few miles below the subsequent location of Philadelphia. The whole country occupied by them became known as New Sweden.

While the limits of New Netherlands were thus becoming narrowed on the east and on the south, the colony was almost annihilated by the neighboring Algonquin tribes. Bloody quarrels had arisen between dishonest traders and natives to whom they had sold intoxicating liquors. Revenge dwells in the bosom of the savage, and the son of a chief, in return for the murder of one of his friends, sought the first opportunity of killing a Hollander. The river chieftains expressed their sorrow, and offered to console the grief of the