In the year 1609, Henry Hudson, an English navigator in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, undertook a voyage in the "Half-Moon," to seek a westward passage to China, and in September entered what is now known as New York Bay. In 1613, a Dutch trading establishment, consisting of five houses, under tlie superintendence of Hendrick Corstiaensen, was set up, but received a serious check when Captain Argall, of the Virginia colony, touched at the island and forced Corstiaensen and his associates to submit to the King of England, and to agree to pay tribute, in token of their dependence on the English crown.
In 1614 the States-General of the United Netherlands, for the purpose of encouraging exploration and settlement, offered a four years' monopoly of trade with newly-discovered lands. A company of merchants, under the title of "The United New Netherland Company," forming a partnership -- not a corporation -availed themselves of the privilege, and erected the first rude fort on Manhattan Island. At the termination of the four yeai-s the charter of this company expired and was never renewed.*
The next step, in order of time, was the settlement of Plymouth, in 1620, under the original patent of New England, which embraced all that part of North America between the fortieth and forty-eighth de-
1 2 Bancroft, U. S., 272.
PLAINS. 715
grees of north latitude, and extending " from sea to I sea that is, as far south as Philadelphia and as far north as (Quebec, and in breadth from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This grant was absolute and exclusive. Without the permission of the Plymouth Council, no ship might sail into any hai'bor from Newfoundland to the latitude of Philadelphia; and not an emigrant might place his foot upon the soil. It was under this grant that four and twenty families landed from the " Mayflower," on Plymouth Rock, in December, 1620, and established a settlement, from which is dated the planting of New England.^