Van Twiller, in 1633, purchased from the Indians an extensive tract of land, called the Connittelsock, lying on the west bank of the river and sixty miles from its mouth. At this point was established a trading post, called "The House of Good Hope." November 3, 1()20, King James I. incorporated "The Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering and governing New England in America" (commonly called the Plymouth Company). The charter conferred upon them the territory lying between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Earl of Arundell, president of this company, in 1631 granted to Robert, Earl of Warwick, the country from the Narraganaetts along the shore forty leagues, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. The Governor of Massachusetts Bay protested against the establishment of " The House of Good Hope" as an encroachment on English rights, and Van Twiller responded, October 4, 1633, that Connittelsock belonged to the Dutch by right of purchase. An expedition from the Plymouth colony had already landed about a mile above the Dutch trading post, and what is now Connecticut was soon settled at various points by the English.

Before the opening of controversy between the Dutch and English colonists, a similar one was going on on the other side of the ocean. The Plymouth Company complained to the privy council about " the Dutch intruders," and as early as February, 1622, we find the British ambassador at the Hague, Sir Dudley Carlton, claiming New Netherland as a part of New England and re(iuiring the States-General to stay the prosecution of their plantation. To this remonstrance no attention was paid. I\Iay 5, 1632, the West India Company reported to the States-General that " the English themselves, according to their charter (of Massachusetts Bay), place New England on the coast between the 41st and 45th degrees of latitude.