In this Patent, perhaps the strongest, most sweeping, and most comprehensive in its terms, of any granted in America by an English Monarch, the King gave to the Duke the entire territory of New Netherland therein described, (though of course that name was not used) upon this tenure, namely; -- "To be holden of us our Heirs and Successors, as of our Manor of East Greenwich and our County of Kent, in free and common soccage and not in Capite, nor by Knight Service, yielding and rendering * * * * of and for the same, yearly and every year, forty beaver skins when they shall be demanded, or within Ninety days after."

The Patent was drawn by Lord Chancellor Clarendon, the Duke's father-in-law, and practically vested in him all the powers of an absolute Sovereign, subject only in the execution of them to the laws of England. But in all matters not covered by those laws, his own rule in person, or by his Deputy-Governor, was supreme. The only power that was reserved to the King was thehearins: and determining of Appeals from Judgments and Sentences.

The theory of the Patent was, that the King had

resumed control of a territory originally belonging to the Crown by the right of its discovery by theCabots. That all people therein, Indians excepted, were trespassers without legal right, that the territory was without lawful government, that the Sovereign of Great Britain, of his own right, therefore established therein such government as he saw fit. That he chose to give, and did give, in the exercise of such right, the entire territory, and his own powers and rights therein, and thereover, to his brother the Duke of York, with full authority to establish, and carry them into effect, as he should see fit.