148    UNITED    STATES    GAZETTEER.

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settlement for trading with the nations on the Connecticut, and, for a considerable period,
stoutly disputed the possession with the settlers from the jurisdictions of both Plymouth and
Massachusetts.* Indeed, they seem to have honestly purchased from the natives a right to
the soil, with as much scrupulousness as the very Puritans at the east of them. Their claim,
of a nature like that of the English, was made to extend, says Dunlap,f “ from Cape Cod to
Delaware Bay, on the Atlantic, including the islands of the sea-coast; the River St. Law-
rence seems to have bounded it on the north; on the south, some undefined line beyond
Delaware Bay ; and west, it was boundless." Afterwards, however, it was narrowed down to
the territory west of the Fresh River, as they termed the Connecticut. Mention is made of
their purchasing of the Indians the territory between this and the North River, and “twenty-
one miles inland ; " and De Laet, one of their early historians, J dwells on the pleasantness
and fertility of the country, visited after Hudson, by Adrian Block, in 1614. Until recently,
however, we have had little knowledge concerning the voyages of the Dutch navigators.
Honor is at length given, and justice done them, in the Collections of the New York Histori-
cal Society.

Without entering too minutely into details, in this place, it may be sufficient to remark
that, notwithstanding it has been asserted by some, that as early as 1623 the Dutch built a
fortress at the present site of Plartford, yet Trumbull § states it to have been as late as 1633,
only three years before Governor Haynes and Mr. Hooker led their little colony thither.
Disputes there were, sharp and long continued, with respect to boundaries. The English
confided in their royal charter, and the ability of their king to sustain it; the Dutch in the
liberty granted them by their high mightinesses the States General of Holland ; and nothing
but the superiority of British power, which effected the conquest of New York, and gave to
the “colony of New Netherlands" a character, laws, alliances, and interests wholly English,
prevented the establishment of a Dutch republic on these western shores. And it admits of
question, whether true candor has, in this country, been shown to the claims of the noble-
spirited people who authorized and forwarded the founding of New Amsterdam, “at a time,"
said a worthy descendant from them, “ when that nation [Holland] had just sprung into political
existence, after a long, bloody, and most glorious struggle against civil and religious tyranny,
during which all the energies of patriotism, courage, and talents had been suddenly and
splendidly developed." ||

To be brief in this rapid review, a long period of silence on the subject of the Dutch
claims, or the claims of New York, in reference to territory north of Massachusetts and west
of Connecticut River, seems to have been maintained. This, perhaps, was owing to two
considerations ; the one, that already more land was claimed and possessed than the inhabit-
ants could occupy and cultivate; and the other, that the northern frontier beyond Massachu-
setts, open as it was to the invasion of the French and their Indian allies or subjects, presented
no attractions to settlers.

When, however, the establishment of peace removed the fears of savage outrage, and
rendered the subduing of the wilderness no longer a perilous enterprise, “ the unsettled lands
of the country acquired a new value, and were every where explored and sought after by
speculators and adventurers. None appeared more inviting than the tract between Lake
Champlain and Connecticut River. The soil was rich and fertile, favorable in many places to
the production of grain, and in all to grazing and the raising of cattle. It was plentifully
watered by streams and rivers, and abounded with necessary and useful timber. In such a
soil and situation, the labor and hardships of a few years could scarcely fail of producing
rich and valuable farms, with all the ease and independence naturally annexed to industry in
the rural economy of life." If

Application being made, as we have seen above, to the governor of New Hampshire, within

* See Trumbull's Connecticut, and Dunlap's Hist. N. Y. f Hist, of N. Y. vol. i. p. 9.

% See N. Y. Hist. Coll. vol. i. pp. 92, 295.    §    Hist, of Connecticut, vol. i. p. 21.

|| See Verplanck's Anniversary Discourse before the N. Y. Hist. Soe., 1818.

IT Dr. Williams, from whose account much of what immediately follows is abridged.