Murphy of Brooklyn, a great lawyer, a practiced statesman, in the Dutch language profoundly skilled, and who had been minister to Holland, after a thorough investigation of this story of Argyll's visit, placed in a note to his translation of Van dor Donck's "Vertoogh," or "Representation," of New Netherland, published in 1849, the following emphatic opinion, -- " This story is a pure fiction, unsustained by any good authority -- though some writers have heaped up citations on the subject -- and as fully susceptible of disproof as any statement of that character at that early period can be." '
It is clear that from Hudson's Discovery to the chartering of the West India Company the Dutch considered New Netherland as a colony for commercial purposes only, and maintained it simply for the profits of the fur trade with the Indians. Its true colonization, as a land to be settled by their own people, for its agricultural and other resources, and as a possible market for the productions of Holland, was gradually forced upon them by their experience of its constantly increasing value, and pleasant, and productive, climate and soil.
The first step in this direction was the chartering of the West India Company by the States General of the United Netherlands on the third of June 1621. Such an organization as an armed military trading company to Africa and Virginia, was suggested by William Usselinx, a merchant of Antwerp, in 16uG, as a means of aiding the Government in the war with Spain, then raging. Some preliminary measures were taken, but before any practicable ones could be adopted, the truce of 1609 was agreed upon for the term of twelve years, and the scheme fell to the ground.