The director-general and his council were invested with all powers, judicial, legislative, and executive, subject, some supposed, to appeal to Holland, but the will of the company, expressed in their instructions or declared in their marine or military ordinances, was to be the law of New Netherland, excepting in cases not especially provided lor, when the Roman law, the imperial of Patr'tii-- statutes of Charles V., tin- edicts, resolutions, and customs Fatherland-- were to be received as the paramount rule of action."1 corporaOne of the primary aims in the construction of this mighty maritime tion being to establish an efficient and aggressive Atlantic power in the struggle with Spain, very precise provisions were made for that purpose. ' " The States-General engaged to assist them with a million of guilders, equal to nearly half a million of dollars; and m with sixteen vessels of war and fourcase peace should be disturbed, Westchester County (Scharf, i.. 42). 1 De Lancey's Hist, of the Manors of

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teen yachts, fully armed and equipped-- the former to be at least of three hundred and the latter of eighty tons' burden; but these vessels were to be maintained at the expense of the company, which was to furnish, unconditionally, sixteen ships and fourteen yachts, of like tonnage, for the defense of trade and purposes of war, which, with all merchant vessels, were to be commanded by an admiral appointed and instructed by their High Mightinesses." And this magnificent programme of naval aggression was no mere wordy ornamentation woven into the prosaic context of a matter-offact commercial agreement for nattering effect. The West India Company, with its ships of war and armed merchantmen, under brilliant commanders, scoured the Spanish Main, capturing many a richly freighted bark of the enemy, and, not content with the prizes of the high seas, it dispatched expeditions to attack the Spanish territorial possessions in the Antilles and South America, which proceeded from conquest to conquest.