Conscejuently a grant from the British Crown is tlie highest source of title in this State, and one which is irrefragable, and incapable of being affected adversely in any way by any legislative, or other, act of the State government, or any decision of any Court of this Stale, or of the United States.

3.

The Dutch in Xeto Netherland.

A brief statement of the dealings of the Dutch with their newly discovered country, before its colonization was actually begun, is necessary to a right understanding of the principles upon which that colonization was undertaken, and of the system of government, and laws, which that great nation established, in New Netherland.

And here let it be noted, that this name was New Netherland, not New Netherlands, as so often, and so wrongly, printed, written, and spoken. "Niew Nederlandt" was the term in Dutch. Adding a final "s" to the English translation, and calling it New Netherlands, is simply a pure New England vulgarism, and an utterly erroneous translation of the true name.

The Netherlands, in the plural, was the correct name in English of the United Provinces, from the fact that they consisted of seven Provinces, while Niew Netherlandt was but a single Province, notwithstanding its great extent, and hence was always spoken of, and written of, by the Dutcii in the singular number.

The announcement of Hudson's great discovery did not produce rapid results. The extraordinary success of the East India Company at that time and the enormous dividends it declared drew the general attention to the eastern, and not to the western world. A single vessel in 1610, the year after the return of the Half Moon, made a successful trading voyage to the "River of the Mountains," returning to Holland with a valuable cargo of peltries. Two Dutch navigators, Hendrick Christiaensen, or Corstiaensen, and Adrian Block, chartering a vessel commanded by Captain Ryser, next made a voyage to the new region.