High and Mighty, to him Rensselaer and other Patroons of Colonies; that afterwards, the aforementioned West India Company's Director had indeed disquieted the Petitioners in the possession of the aforesaid hamlet or village, leaving in the meanwhile the Petitioners only in the possession of the remainder of their aforesaid Colonic.

That in the year 1664, New Netherland and consequentlv the Colonic aforesaid fell and remained in the hands of his Majesty the King of Great Britain, when the name of Albany was given to the aforesaid Fort Orange which is situate in the Petitioners' aforesaid Colonic Rensselaerswyck, with said Colonic and other lands lying thereabout, until they were again recovered by their High Mightinesses' glorious arms.

The first patroon of Rensselaerswyck has been the William the Conqueror of Dutch New York. All ancient families trace their descent from him, and poor indeed is the upstart who cannot claim him for an ancestor.

520 The Hudson River

In the days when that "great, armed, mercantile monopoly," as Mrs. Laml^ called the West India Com- ])any, was exploring and ex|:)loiting distant countries, was making alliances with something of the assumption of independent sovereignty, and commissioning its admirals for foreign conc[uest, a member of its governing body, one of the all-|)owerful Nineteen, was Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. He was a pem'l merchant, wealthy and well born, who sent over se\^eral of his own ships with agents to select territory for him. Three tracts of land were chosen, one in Delaware, one in New Jersey (at Pavonia), and the third in the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Orange. The last-named tract became in time the site of several thriving cities and villages, among which Albany, Troy, and Lansingburg are the most important. Under the act of 1629, styled a "Charter of Freedoms and exemptions," Van Rensselaer secured his title as patroon and proceeded to send colonists to settle his land.