A violent territorial controversy was maintained between Massachusetts and New Hampshire during a long period. Neither party was disposed to compromise, each being confident of the justice of its extravagant assumption of boundary. After various discussions in England and sur.veys in America, the controversy was at length matured for a British council's decision. In 1840, the agent of New Hampshire presented a memorial to the privy council which not only fortified the plea of his constituents with the most ingenious fiction, but strove to awaken the prejudice which the British were known to entertain against Massachusetts. (1740.) This pleading was successful, New Hampshire gaining more than she asked. At this decision, the rage and mortification of the people of Massachusetts was unbounded, but they could obtain no modification of it. They sustained a similar defeat in a territorial controversy with Rhode Island, in which the latter province gained more than it claimed, though the reasons of the opposing parties were equally balanced. There could be no feeling of sympathy between the British government and the people of Massachusetts.

EW YORK, alone, of all the North American colonies, was first settled by the Dutch. In 1608, Hendrick Hudson, a well-known navigator, obtained from the East India Company of Holland, a small vessel to prosecute his explorations of the coast of North America. In the beginning of July, he reached the great bank of Newfoundland, and continued his course along the shores of Acadia. In passing Cape Cod, his people landed at several points and held. intercourse with the natives. Pursuing his course southward, he reached the James River on the 17th of August. His object was to find a passage to the East Indies, the great end of the navigators' ambition in those days.

Finding no opening, Hudson turned northward, passed the Delaware Bay, sailed along the coast of New Jersey and reached what he thought to be the mouths of three great rivers, but which were only different channels of the same river. Boats were sent to sound the most northerly

of them, which was found to have a good depth of water. The vessel entered the stream, and its crew soon began to trade with the natives; but in some way their hostility was aroused, and one of the seamen was killed and two wounded. Hudson gave his name to the river, and explored it as far north as the present site of Albany. The Indians displayed their hostility as he descended, but gunpowder and fire-arms soon quieted them. On leaving the river, Hudson sailed for Europe and reached Dartmouth on the 7th of November, 1609.

The Dutch, considering that they had acquired a good title to the adjacent territory from Hudson's expedition, named it New Netherlands; and the reports of the country being confirmed by subsequent voyages, an association of Dutch merchants determined to establish a trading settlement within its limits, and the states-general favored the project by granting to its projectors the exclusive trade of the river.

NCOURAGED by this act of favor, the association sent out a small number of settlers in 1614. They erected a fort on the west bank of the river, near Albany, and entrusted the government to Henry Christaens. This settlement was scarcely made, when Captain Argal, with a Virginian squadron, on his return from the conquest of the French possessions in Acadie, visited the Dutch colonists and obliged the governor to surrender his command and to stipulate alliance to England, and subordination and tribute to the government of Virginia. The states of Holland, fearing to offend a new and powerful ally, whose friendship they could not well discard, did not notice this hostile movement. But in the next year, a new governor, Jacob Elkin, was sent out with a reinforcement of settlers, and the claims of the English were defied, and the payment of tribute successfully resisted.

The colonists now erected a second fort on the southwest point of Long Island, and afterwards built two others, one on the Connecticut River, the other on the east side of Delaware Bay. They continued to enjoy tranquillity and to increase in number and importance during a long series of years.

In 1620, the States-general established the West India Company; and in pursuance of their favorite policy of colonizing by means of exclusive companies, they committed to it the administration of New Netherlands. Under the control of the company, the new settlement was both consolidated and extended. Their powers were very extensive, and the whole eastern coast of America, from Newfoundland to the Straits of Magellan, was included in their patent. But the English claims and settlements

forced the Dutch to be content with the country adjacent to the Hudson River.

In 1629, it was determined to organize the colony on a more considerable scale. The plan was quite aristocratic; for though lands were granted to detached settlers, the chief dependence was upon opulent individuals, who were expected to carry out parties of tenants at their own expense; and those who should transport fifty, became lords of manors, holding the absolute property of the lands thus colonized. They might even possess tracts fifteen miles long, and be furnished with negroes, if they could profitably do so. Several individuals began to found these The principal Dutch settlement was on Manhattan Island, and was called New Amsterdam.

manors.

NFORTUNATELY, as the limits of the colony were extended, the colonists became involved in disputes with the English settlers of Connecticut, and the Swedes of Delaware. Van Twiller, the first governor appointed by the West India Company, was succeeded in 1637 by William Kieft, a man of activity and ability, but of an irritable and impetuous temper. His administration

commenced with a protest against the advance of the New Haven and Connecticut settlements, and a prohibition against the trade the English were carrying on in the vicinity of the Dutch settlement on the Connecticut River. The English treated his remonstrances with contempt, and in a few years after, compelled the Dutch to evacuate the territory of Connecticut. Kieft retaliated, in 1642, by expelling some English settlers from the western part of Long Island. The Swedes and Finns who had settled in Delaware, in 1627 excited the hostility of the Dutch, and an enmity existed for several years between them. No bloodshed occurred, yet this state of harmless hatred has been derisively called

a war.

But all these annoyances were small, compared to an Indian war in which the violence of Kieft involved the colonists of New Netherlands. Attacking by surprise a party which had shown some hostile intentions, he commenced a general massacre, in which nearly a hundred men perished. A two years' war followed. The Dutch, unskilled in Indian warfare, engaged the services of Captain Underhill, who had been banished from Boston. Their Indian enemies were the warlike tribes composing the Five Nations. A general battle was fought on Strickland's Plain, in which the Dutch merely succeeded in keeping the field. Their foes fled unpursued. (1646.)

In 1647, Kieft was succeeded by Peter Stuyvesant, a brave and prudent officer who soon effected a treaty of peace with the Indians. In 1650, Stuyvesant went to Hartford, and demanded from the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, a full surrender of the lands on Connecticut River. Several days were spent in controversy on the subject, and articles of agreement were finally signed, by which Long Island was divided between the parties; and the Dutch were permitted to retain only those lands on the Connecticut River, which they held in actual possession. Stuyvesant also conquered, without bloodshed, all the Swedish settlements on the Delaware. A few of the Swedes returned to their native country, the remainder quietly submitted to the sway of the Dutch governor.

NWILLING to grant any political franchises to the colonists, the company nevertheless took care to have them well governed. They prohibited persecution, and studied to make the country a refuge for professors of every creed. The great body of the settlers were Protestants, who then suffered. much from persecution in Europe; but such was the variety of their nation and language, that the colonial proclamations were issued in French, English and Dutch. Several attempts were made to secure a representative form of government, but Stuyvesant resisted, and, the company supporting him, triumphed.

Oliver Cromwell had projected the conquest of the New Netherlands; but had been diverted from that object to others more important. Charles II., seeking occasion for a quarrel with Holland, asserted the right of England to possess the country, and granted a charter to the Duke of York for all the lands lying between the Connecticut and the Delaware.