IV.

body exercised, upon some occasions, a pretty arbitrary CHAPTER power, of which we have an instance in an order for drafting every fortieth man in the colony to establish a 1632. settlement at Middle Plantation, half way from James

to York River-subsequently under the name of Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia.

Two years after, the colony was divided into eight 1634 counties Elizabeth City, Warwick, James City, Charles City, and Henrico, along the north bank of James River; Isle of Wight, on the south bank; York, on York River; and Accomac, on the eastern shore.

De

Of the country north of the Chesapeake Bay, little was yet known. Harvey had a chart on which Delaware Bay was laid down; and to ascertain if there was 1632. a river there, he sent a sloop to explore it. This sloop Sepi never returned; but Harvey was informed, by the arri val, the next spring, at Jamestown, of Captain De Vries, 1633. in a Dutch yacht, that the Delaware Bay and River had April. been for some years frequented by Dutch traders. Vries himself had sailed thither to engage in the whale fishery; but, finding that a settlement, established the year before near Cape Henlopen, had been destroyed by the Indians, and that an older Dutch fort higher up had been abandoned, leaving his ship to fish, he had come in his yacht to Jamestown to purchase corn. Harvey, in conversation with De Vries, to whom he showed all hospitality, stoutly maintained the better title of the En-. glish; but still he seemed to think that there was land enough for both. Two years after, a party from Vir- 1657 ginia occupied, for a little while, the still deserted Dutch fort on the Delaware; but they were soon taken prisoners by a force from Manhattan, and sent home to Virginia; nor was the attempt at occupation renewed.

CHAPTER

V.

Two

CHAPTER V.

SETTLEMENT OF NEW NETHERLAND.

years after the arrival of the first English colony in Virginia, the same year in which the Hudson 1609. River was discovered, the Dutch, after a long and tedious struggle, continued for more than forty years, had obtained from the proud Spanish court a truce, amounting, in substance, to an acknowledgment of their independence. The Dutch East India Company, already in active operation, was fast snatching from the Portuguese the lucrative commerce of India and the Oriental islands. The Bank of Amsterdam had been lately established. The merchants of Holland, enriched by an extensive and profitable carrying trade, and now taking the lead in maritime commerce, sought every where new openings for traffic.

The North American river discovered by Hudson while sailing under the Dutch flag at once attracted attention, 1610. and the very next year after its discovery Dutch ships were sent to trade with the Indians there. For the con1613. venience of this traffic, little forts, or fortified trading houses were built, one especially on the Island of Manhattan, at the river's mouth..

Νον.

Hardly was occupation thus taken when the Dutch traders under Hendrick Corstiaensen received a visit from Argall, who compelled them, as mentioned in the previous chapter, to haul down their flag. Argall claimed all that region as appertaining to the English, and a part of their province of Virginia; but the Dutch flag was hoisted again as soon as he was gone.

V.

On the strength of an ordinance of the States-General, CHAPTER assuring to any discoverers of new lands the exclusive privilege of four trading voyages thither, an Amsterdam 1614 company dispatched five vessels to explore the North American coasts. Three of these vessels, under Corstiaensen as chief commander, were employed in explorations north of Cape Cod; but in these they had been preceded by the French and English. Block and Mey sailed for Manhattan. Shortly after their arrival, Block's vessel was accidentally burned; but that enterprising commander soon replaced it by a yacht of sixteen tons which he built on the coast, and called "The Restless." He passed in this little vessel through the East River, to which he gave the name of Hellegat, and then, coasting the northern shore of Long Island Sound, discovered first the Housatonic and then the Connecticut, which he ascended for some distance, and named Fresh River, in contrast to the Hudson, whose waters were salt. Continuing to the eastward, he discovered and explored Narraganset Bay, which he called the Bay of Nassau, and off Cape Cod fell in with and embarked for Holland in Corstiaensen's ship. The name of Block Island still commemorates these explorations. Mey, the companion of Block, after examining the south shore of Long Isl and, entered Delaware Bay, of which the northern cape still bears his name.

The company at whose expense these explorations had been made, obtained, in consequence, from the States-General, an exclusive privilege of trade for three years to all Oct that part of the North American coast included between the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude-a region named in this grant NEW NETHERLand. The Hudson was called the Mauritius, after Maurice, prince of Orange, the Dutch stadtholder; but it soon became

V

1615.

CHAPTER known among the Dutch as the North River, in distinction from the Delaware, which they called the South River. Measures were taken to improve this monopoly to the utmost; and Jacob Elkins, sent out the next year on behalf of these adventurers, ascended the Mauritius, and built a fortified trading house on an island at the head of navigation, not far from the present site of Albany. The establishment of this post, removed, a year or two 1618. afterward, to the main land on the west bank of the river, first brought the Dutch into contact with the Mohawks, the easternmost of the affiliated tribes of the Iroquois or Five Nations. Remarkable for their savage prowess, ferocious courage, and passion for warlike enterprises, theso tribes had their homes on the upper waters of the Hudson, and on those beautiful lakes still fur ther to the westward, in the fertile region south of Lake Ontario. The eastern Indians regarded this confederacy with terror, while the tribes as far south as the Chesapeake lived in constant dread of their war parties. Already these fierce warriors, destined to play a conspicuous part in American history, had conceived a violent antipathy against the French of Canada, who had given aid to the Hurons and other tribes of their enemies who dwelt on the St. Lawrence. The Dutch assiduously cultivated their friendship, and presently furnished them with fire-arms, by which they became still more formidable.

The Iroquois spoke a dialect of the Wyandot; the Indians about the island of Manhattan were of the Algonquin race, branches of the Leni-Lenape confederacy, known subsequently to the English as the Delawares. They seem also to have shared with the tribes on Long Island Sound the gencral appellation of Mohegans or Mohekanders. For convenience of traffic with those tribes, and as a rendezvous for vessels coming from Hol

land, Corstiaensen built a new fort or trading house on CHAPTER the Island of Manhattan.

V.

1615

Hendricksen, who had been left on the coast in command of the Restless, carefully explored the South Bay and River as far up as the mouth of the Schuylkill-explorations which Mey himself afterward continued and completed. The three years' monopoly of the company was not extended, but they still kept up their trading houses and continued their trade. The English refugees at Leyden, of whose settlement at New Plymouth the next chapter will contain an account, doubtful of religious toleration if they settled under the Virginia patent, proposed to these merchants to establish a colony at the 1619. mouth of the Hudson; but the disinclination of the Dutch authorities prevented this project from going into effect; and the English refugees, since they could do no better, renewed their negotiation with the Virginia Company.

Argall's protest against the establishment of the Dutch at Manhattan was soon repeated from another quarter Captain Dormer, in the service of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, coasting in a sinall vessel from the Kennebec to Virginia, was probably the first Englishman who passed through Long Island Sound. On his return the same way he touched at Manhattan, and claimed all that region as 1620. within the patent of the English company for North Virginia, to which the Dutch traders replied that they were the first occupiers. Argall, Gorges, and others joined 1621 in a complaint to James I. against the intrusions of the Dutch, and the English embassador at the Hague was ordered to examine into the matter, and to remonstrate with the States-General. They referred the subject to 1622 the deputies of Holland, who alleged ignorance, and promised to inquire; but no answer to the remonstrance seems ever to have been made.