The Dutch, in a carefully j)repared deduction of their title, declared that after the North River was discovered in 1609 by subjects of their High Mightinesses, and visited by some of their citizens in 1610 and following years, a grant was made in 1615, to some of their subjects, of the trade to that country, and a small fort and garrison established there, which remained until the charter granted to the West India Company, which included these as well as other countries ; that the grant of His Britannic Majesty to his subjects under the name of New England included the land between the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees ; and the grant to Virginia included the country between the thirtyseventh and thirty-ninth degrees, leaving one hundred miles from one to the other, so that the Dutch limits should be from the thirty-ninth to the fortyfirst parallel, between which degrees it was not known the English had any designs, and which the subjects of their High Mightinesses obtained, partly

by treaty with the proprietors of the soil, and partly by purchase.

This vindication of the company's rights was presented to Charles I., and a formal reply on the part of His Majesty was soon afterward made, in support of the British claims to the countries in North America of which the AVest India Company then had possession.

"The Dutch demand restitution" (say the Lords Commissioners of England) *' of a rertain ship seized at Plymouth on return from a certain plantation by them usurped, north of Virginia, which they allege they ac(iuirfid from the natives of those countries. It is denied that the savages were possessed of those countries so as to bo able to dispose of them, or that they were parties to the said pretended sale. And as regards the allegation that the natives have their abode round about them, the truth is, the English sun'ound them on all sides, as they have very well discovered.