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.^

In 1()21, the Dutch West India Company was incor[)orated for a [leriod of twenty years, with privilege to traffic and i)lant colonies on the coast of Africa, from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and on the coast of America from the Straits of Magellan to the remotest north ; thus lightly did the little nation of merchants make gifts of continents, However, intelligence being received in England that preparations were making to send vessels to America, King James I. directed his ambassador at the Hague to urge upon the States-General the necessity of preventing their subjects from settling in parts north of Virginia, and distinctly asserting the illegality of making any settlements on this continent.-' The ambassador was assured that the Dutch had planted no colony there, and intended to plant none. Notwithstanding these assurances, the Dutch West India Company, in 1626, purchased of the Indians, for the sum of twenty-four dollars, the Island of Manhattan, and built thereon Fort Amsterdam.