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.

This attempt at a permanent settlement drew from Governor Bradford, of Plymouth, an earnest assertion of the right of the English to the country now occupied by the Dutch, and an intimation that force might be used to maintain the British claim. The directors in Holland thereupon obtained fnnn Charles I. an order in Council, by which all the ports in the kingdoms and territories of the British King were thrown open to all Dutch vessels trading to or from New Netherland.*

Until the year 1629 the Dutch had done nothing to advance a settlement ; a few servants of the company, connected with the trading posts, were the only Dutch iidiabitants of New Netherland ; and not a foot of soil had been reclaimed save the little that sujjplied the wants of the few persons attached to the three fi)rts.