History of Westchester County, New York, Volume 1. Frederic Shonnard

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СКАЧАТЬ of Hellgate, whose existence was previously unknown to Europeans, and which he navigated safely. Passing the mouth of the Harlem River, he thoroughly explored the Westchester coast along the Sound and emerged into that majestic body of land-locked water. To Block belongs the undivided honor of the discovery of Long Island Sound, which had never before been entered by a European mariner. Indeed, it was assumed up to that time that the coastline north of the eastern extremity of Long Island was continuous, and the separation of Long Island from New England is not indicated on any of the maps of the period. Block sailed through the Sound to Cape Cod, discovering the Connecticut River and the other conspicuous physical features. The name of Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island, commemorates this truly distinguished discoverer, and his momentous voyage. A highly interesting result of Block's achievement was a chart of the country, which he prepared and published, here reproduced in part. Although the outlines in certain respects, particularly in the case of Manhattan Island, are extremely crude, they are surprisingly faithful in the parts representing his individual responsibility. It will be observed that the general trend of the Westchester coast on the Sound is traced almost exactly.

      Returning to Holland in the fall of 1614, with the " Fortune," having left the " Restless " with Christiansen, Block at once became a beneficiary of an attractive commercial offer which had been pro claimed some months previously by the States-General, or central government, of the Netherlands. He and his companion Christiansen were by no means the only seekers of fortune in the splendid realms made known by the captain of the " Half-Moon." Other trading expeditions had gone there, and interest in the resources of this quarter was becoming quite active. To further promote such interest, and to arouse fresh endeavor, the States-General, in March, 1614, issued a decree offering to grant to any person or number of persons who should discover new lands a charter of exclusive privileges of trade therewith. Upon Block's return there was pending before the States General an application for the coveted charter by a strong organization of merchants, which was based upon Hudson's discovery and the representation that the hopeful organization was prepared to make to the region in question the number of voyages conditionally required in the decree. On October 11, 1614, Block submitted to the States General, at The Hague, explicit information of his discoveries, and a charter bearing that date was accordingly granted to him and a number of individuals associated with him (of whom Christiansen was one), comprising a business society styled the New Netherland Company. This company had for its formally defined aim the commercial exploitation of the possessions of Holland in the New World, to which collectively the name of New Netherland was now applied. It was in the same year and month that New England was first recalled by Prince Charles of Wales (afterward Charles I.).

      The grant of the States-General establishing the New Netherland Company, after naming the persons associated in it — these persons being the proprietors and skippers of five designated ships, — describes the region in which its operations are to be carried on as " certain new lands situate in America, between New France and Virginia, the seacoasts whereof lie between forty and forty-five degrees of latitude, and now called New Netherland." The Range of territorial limits in latitude thus claimed for Holland's dominion on the American coast is certainly a broad extension of the rights acquired by the discoveries of Hudson and Block, and utterly ignores the sovereignty of England north of the Virginian region proper. On the other hand, the entire coast to which Holland now set up pretensions had already been not only comprehensively claimed by Great Britain, but allotted in terms to the corporate ownership and jurisdiction of two English companies. In 1606, three years before the voyage of Hudson and eight years before the chartering of the New Netherland Company, the old patent of Sir Walter Raleigh having been voided by his attainder for treason, James I. issued a new patent, partitioning British America, then known by the single name of Virginia, into two divisions. The first division, called the First Colony, was granted to the London Company, and extended from thirty-four degrees to thirty-eight degrees, with the right of settlement as far as forty-one degrees in the event that this company should be the first to found a colony that far north. The second division, or Second Colony, assigned to the Plymouth Company, embraced the country from forty-one degrees to forty-five degrees, with the privilege of acquiring rights southward to thirty-eight degrees, likewise conditioned upon priority of colonization. Throughout the long controversy between England and Holland touching their respective territorial rights in America, it was, indeed, the uniform contention of the English that the Dutch were interlopers in the interior, and that the exclusive British title to the coast was beyond question.

      Attached to the charter given by the States-General to the New Netherland Company was Block's " figurative map," already alluded to. The grant accorded to the company a trade monopoly, which, however, was only " for four voyages, within the term of three years, commencing the 1st of January, 1615, next ensuing, or sooner." During this three years' period it was not to be " permitted to any other per son from the United Netherlands to sail to, navigate, or frequent the said newly discovered lands, havens, or places," "on pain of confiscation of the vessel and cargo wherewith infraction hereof shall be at tempted, and a fine of 50,000 Netherland ducats for the benefit of the said discovers or finders."

      No obligation to settle the land was prescribed for the company, and, indeed, this charter was purely a concession to private gain-seeking individuals, involving no projected aims of state policy or colonial undertaking whatever, although wisely bestowed for but a brief period. Under the strictly commercial regime of the New Netherland Company other voyages were made, all highly successful in material results, the fur trade with the Indians still being the objective. That the scope of operations of these early Dutch traders comprehended the entire navigable portion of the Hudson River is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that two forts were erected near the site of Albany, one called Fort Nassau, on an island in the river, and the other Fort Orange, on the mainland. It is hence easily conceivable that not in frequent landings were made by the bartering Dutchmen at the various Indian villages on our Westchester shore in these first days of Hudson River commerce.

      On the 1st of January, 1618, the charter of the New Netherland Company expired by time limitation. Application for its renewal was refused, and from that date until July, 1621, the whole of New Netherland was a free field for whomsoever might care to assume the expense and hazard of enterprises within its borders. This peculiar condition was not, however, due to any nagging of interest in their American possessions on the part of the Dutch government, but was an incident of a well-considered political programme which was kept in abeyance because of the circumstances of the time, to be launched in the fullness of events.

      The twelve years' truce between Holland and Spain, signed in 1609, was now drawing to its close. The question of the continuance of peace or the resumption of war was still a doubtful one, contingent upon the ultimate disposition of Spain, for the people of the Nether lands were resolved in no case to accept anything but absolute independence. In the eventuality of war it would become a particularly important part of Dutch policy not merely to provide for the protection of the new provinces in America and their prospective inhabit ants, but to cope with the formidable Spanish maritime power in American waters, and as far as possible prey upon the rich commerce of Spain with that quarter of the globe and even wrest territory from her there. To this end it was more than idle to consider the rechartering of a weak aggregation of skippers and their financial sponsors as the sole delegate and upholder of the dignity and strength of the republic in the western seas. If hostilities were to be renewed it would be indispensable to institute an organization in connection with New Netherland powerful enough to encounter the fleets of Spain on at least an equal footing. A perfect pattern for such an organization already existed in the Dutch East India Company. The creation of a West India Company on similar lines to meet the expected need was the grand scheme of statecraft which caused the States-General to reject the solicitations of the worthy traders of the New Netherland Company for a continuation of their valuable monopoly.

      This was, moreover, no newly devised plan. In 1604, two years after the establishment of the East India Company, and long before the first appearance of the Dutch nag on the American coast, the conception of a West India Company was carefully formulated in a paper drawn up by one William Usselinx and presented, progressively, to the board of burgomasters of Amsterdam, the legislature or " СКАЧАТЬ