And such was the basis of the legal system under which civil rule and civil law was first established within its borders; and under which it flourished and was governed, till the close of the Dutch dominion, a period of more than half a century.

4.

The Colonhntion by the West India Company.

In the same year, 1623, the West India Company began the colonization of New Netherland, which was then erected into a Province, by the States- General and invested with the armorial bearings of a Count ;^ the shield being, argent, a pale sable charged with three crosses saltire, argent, paleways; the crest a Beaver coucliant proper.*

1 I. O'Call. Hist., 89.

2 lb , 91.

s I. Brod., 148 ; I. O'Call., 99.

* These arms, in IGjl, ajipeur on the first seal of tlio Province, which

To the Chamber of Amsterdam was committed its direction and management. That body despatched the first expedition in March, 1623, under Cornelis Jacobsen May -- from whom the northern cape at the mouth of the Delaware is named -- as the first Director-General of New Netherland. It consisted of the ship "New Netherland" of 266 tons burthen, with a cargo of supplies and tools, and thirty families of colonists, who were Protestant Walloons. These Walloons were the inhabitants of the frontier between France, and Flanders, from the river Scheldt to the river Lys, their language was the old French, and their religion the Reformed Faith of the Huguenots. Associated with this expedition, as the captain of the ship, was Adrian Joris, who had made several prior voyages to the coast of America, although he is sometimes erroneously styled "Director."" After a two months' voyage by way of the Canaries and the West Indies May and his colonists arrived in the baj' of New York.