that year. It was in this voyage, that he discovered the river which bears his name, and ascended it to about the place where the city of Albany now stands. He never visited the river, or this part of the coast, after this year, The Dutch East India Company soon after made an establishment at Albany, called Fort Orange, or Aurania, which was, as above related, compelled by Capt. Argal to submit for a short time to the British crown. This exploit, however, was performed by Argal in 1613, for, in the spring of the following year, he returned to England. In 1614, the Dutch settlement receiving a reinforcement, resumed their allegiance to the States General, and built a fort at the Manhadoes, as it was then called, on the site of the present city of New York. This account of the discovery of Hudson's river is confirmed by De Lact, in his America utriusque Descriptio, published in 1633. He says distinctly, that Hudson, an Englishman, was despatched by the Dutch East India Company in the year 1609, for the purpose of discovering a northern passage to China, but that not succeeding in this object, he proceeded southward along the coast of New France, and after touching the coast in 44 degrees North latitude, and at several places near Cape Cod, he advanced as far south as the 37th degree of latitude, from which point he turned back along the shore, and discovered and ascended the river to which he gave his name. This account agrees precisely with the narrative published in Purchas. In virtue of this discovery, the States General claimed the whole country, from the Delaware river, northward ad promontorium Cod usque, and in the year 1610, some merchants of Amsterdam sent a ship thither for the purpose of trading with the natives, and one or two years afterwards they made a permanent settlement. In the Dutch maps published long after this date, not only New Jersey, but Connecticut, Rhode Island, and a part of Massachusetts are represented as included within the province of New Netherlands. These facts are proper to be stated, as accounting for the perseverance with which the people at Manhadocs persisted in their claim to the lands now forming the state of Connecticut, and for the hostile spirit which they manifested towards their neighbours, who dispossessed them of this valuable territory; and will also serve to explain some remarks, which we shall have occasion to make on a subsequent part of this work.

On the 3d of November, 1620, King James I, by letters patent, incorporated the Plymouth Company, consisting of a board of forty members, with the power of filling vacancies by election. To this company he granted, by the same instrument, all that part of North America lying between the 40th and 48th degrees of North latitude, provided the premises were not actually possessed or inhabited by any other christian prince or state,' and gave them full powers to govern the territory thus granted, and to make conveyances of it to such persons as they should see fit. This charter does not seem to have been made for the purpose of giving to the Plymouth Company any pecuniary interest in the tract of land granted to them, but solely for the purpose of enabling them to give titles to adventurers and actual settlers, and of establishing a responsible set of men in the government of the new country. This patent was the foundation of all grants of lands in New England, made for many years. The Plymouth Company afterwards made separate grants of portions of their patent to Massachusetts, Plymouth and other New England colonies, and in 1635 they resigned the charter into the hands of King Charles I.

In the year 1650, the Plymouth Company granted the tract of country, forming the state of Connecticut, to Robert, Earl of Warwick, and he, in the following year, conveyed the same, under a vague and imperfect description, to Lord Say and Seal and his associates. Dr. Trumbull, speaking of this grant, says,

This is the original patent of Connecticut. The settlers of the two colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were the patentees of Viscount Say and Seal, Lord Brook and their associates, to whom the patent was originally given.' p. 28.

And at page 118, he says,

'As the colonists, both in Connecticut and New Haven, were the patentees of Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brook and the other gentlemen interested in the old Connecticut patent, and as the patent covered a large tract of country, both colonies were desirous of securing the native titles to the lands, with all convenient despatch.'

In this there appears to be an errour. The early emigrants to this country were not very careful in securing a title to the lands on which they settled. The first settlers of

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the Plymouth colony did not procure their patent until some time after their arrival and settlement in this country. Lord Say and Seal and his associates, were well disposed towards the pious people who sought an asylum from persecution here, and it was probably with a view of aiding their emigration, that they procured the Connecticut patent. But we have not been able to find any evidence of a grant from them to either the Connecticut or New Haven colony. On the contrary, it is manifest from the letter of the General Court of Connecticut to Lord Say and Seal, of January 7, 1661, that they had received no title whatever from the patentees beyond some encouragements to transplant themselves and families into these inland parts of this vast wilderness.' They had, indeed, in the year 1644, purchased of George Fenwick, who had made a settlement at Saybrook, at the mouth of Connecticut river, and who seems to have been one of the associates of Lord Say and Seal, and others, though not named in the patent to them, the fort and lands occupied by him at Saybrook, and the right of jurisdiction over the lands on Connecticut river. But it does not appear that Fenwick had any authority to make this sale, and the General Court, in the letter above mentioned, complain of being greatly injured by him, he receiving,' say they, a vast sum from a poor people, and we scarcely at all advantaged thereby; nay, we judge our condition worse than if we had contented ourselves with the patronage of the grand patentees, for we have not so much as a copy of a patent to secure our standing as a commonwealth, nor to ensure us of the continuance of our rights and privileges and immunities, which we thought the jurisdiction, power and authority, which Mr. Fenwick had engaged to us, and we paid for at a dear rate, nor any thing under his hand to engage him and his heirs to the performance of that which was aimed at and intended in our purchase."

The agreement with Fenwick is still extant. He seems to have been sensible of his own want of title, and therefore makes no positive covenant. He makes a conveyance in the usual words, of the fort at Saybrook, with two demiculverin cast pieces, with all the shot thereunto appertaining, except fifty; two long saker cast pieces, with all the shot thereunto belonging; one murderer, with two chambers and two hammered pieces; two barrels of gunpowder; forty musquets, with bandoleers and rests; one sow of lead" &c.

and agrees, that all the land upon the river of Connecticut shall belong to the said jurisdiction of Connecticut.' His only covenant of warranty is to make good to the jurisdiction aforesaid, against all claims that may be made by any other to the premises, by reason of any disbursements upon the place,' and that all the lands from Narraganset river to the fort of Saybrook, mentioned in a patent granted by the Earl of Warwick to certain noblemen and gentlemen, shall fall in under the jurisdiction of Connecticut, if it come into his pow

er.'

There is not on record, that we have been able to discover, the slightest notice of any conveyance to the New Haven colony, of the tract of country which they occupied. But, in the year 1645, the court of New Haven, as appears from their records quoted by Dr. Trumbull, voted, that it was a proper time to join with Connecticut, in procuring a patent from parliament for these parts. Mr. Gregson was therefore appointed the agent of New Haven to procure a patent, but on his voyage to England, he was lost at sea, and no other appointment for the purpose was ever made. Mr. Fenwick was appointed on a similar mission by the Connecticut colony, but he did not accept the office.

It appears, therefore, that the two colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were not the patentees of Viscount Say and Seal and others, though they settled on lands which had been previously granted to that company. Through the influence of Lord Say and Seal, and other friends of the colony, at the court of Charles II, the people of Connecticut obtained from that prince, soon after the restoration, a charter with very ample privileges, containing a grant of all the lands embraced in the original patent, including the New Haven colony. This gave them the first legal title to the lands on which they had settled.

Although the great patent of New England, given by James I, recites that, forasmuch as we have been certainly given to understand by divers of our good subjects, that have for these many years past frequented those coasts and territories between the degrees of forty and forty-eight, that there is no other the subjects of any christian king or state, by any authority from their sovereign lords or princes, actually in possession of any of the said lands or precincts,'it is certain that the Dutch of the colony of New Netherlands Vol. VIII. No. 1. 11

had been seated on the banks of the Hudson, by authority of the States General of the United Provinces, for the space of six or eight years. It is probable, that they early extended their discoveries towards the Connecticut. Dr. Trumbull says,

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The first discoveries made of this part of New England were of its principal river and the fine meadows lying upon its banks. Whether the Dutch at New Netherlands, or the people of New Plymouth were the first discoverers of the river is not certain. Both the English and Dutch claimed to be the first discoverers, and both purchased and made a settlement of the lands upon it nearly at the same time.' p. 29.

De Laet says, that his countrymen, the Dutch, discovered an Indian fort on this river, called by them Fresh river, in the year 1614. Prince, in his New England Chronology, says, that Capt. Dermer, an Englishman, sailing from Cape Cod to Virginia, in the year 1619, proceeded along the coast between Long Island and the Main, and was the first who passed through the Sound, and discovered that to be an island, which was before accounted a part of the continent. He returned to New England in the following spring, and in his way he meets with certain Hollanders, who had a trade in Hudson's river some years; discovers many goodly rivers and exceeding pleasant coasts and islands for eighty leagues cast from Hudson's river to Cape Cod.' This was before the settlement of the Plymouth colony, and it does not appear that the Plymouth people had any knowledge of the discovery. In the year 1623, a Dutch trading vessel from the New Netherlands was stranded in Narraganset bay, near the mouth of Taunton river. In the same year, the Plymouth people went on a trading voyage to Narraganset bay, it being the first time they had adventured so far towards the west. In this expedition they were not successful, because the Dutch had been accustomed to supply the natives with goods better suited to their wants, than the Plymouth people were able to furnish. From the length of time, during which the Dutch at New Netherlands had carried on a trade with the Indians through Long Island sound, and the frequency of their visits to Narraganset bay, which is much farther from their settlement than Connecticut river, there is reason to believe that they had frequently visited that river long be