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 1664] Conquest of the New Netherlands. 39 had ever come, would have come piecemeal to a string of disconnected communities incapable of forming an organic whole. At the same time we need not suppose that any such far-sighted views influenced Charles II and his advisers. A more effective reason probably was that the existence of a Dutch settlement in the midst of the English colonies made an effective administration of the Navigation Laws and a com- prehensive commercial system almost impossible. If the subsequent advantage, we may almost say the necessity, of the conquest might be held to justify it, so not less did the manner in which it was carried out. Neither the States-General nor the Dutch West India Company had so dealt with the New Netherlands as to beget any spirit of loyalty. When an English fleet appeared before New Amsterdam, the governor, Peter Stuyvesant, found it impossible to rouse the settlers to effective resistance; and on August 29, 1664, the English flag floated over the settlement. The conquest of the settlements along the valley of the Hudson was as easy and as complete as that of the capital. The name of New York was thereupon given to both the city and the province. One incident connected with the conquest of Fort Orange, afterwards Albany, deserves mention. The chief Indian power in the neighbourhood of the English settlers was that of the Five Nations, called by the French the Iroquois, often by the English the Mohawks, a name which really belonged only to one of the five constituent tribes. Their policy was marked by a definiteness and continuity rare among savages. Their hunting-grounds for in no other sense can one speak of Indian territory extended from the St Lawrence to the hills west of Carolina; and they held a number of the smaller tribes in a state of semi-vassalage. Their friendship was of vital importance to the English. Twice only, so far as authentic records show, had there been up to this time any dealings between the Iroquois and the New Englanders; and on each occasion the English befriended a small party who had wandered as far as the sea-coast. An embassy from the Five Nations now met Cartwright the English commander, at Fort Orange, and received from him promises of help and of the continuance of that trade which had existed between the Indians and the Dutch. Thus was laid the foundation of a friendship whose value to the English it is scarcely possible to overrate. By singular good fortune the task of annexation fell into the hands of one of the few men in England who could have been found thoroughly equal to it. The character of Richard Nicolls reminds one of those men whose wisdom, firmness, and forbearance, shown alike in military and diplomatic victories, have built up our Indian Empire. His clemency was not that of indifference: it went hand in hand with a thoughtful policy of construction. The antecedents of the colony had no doubt done a good deal to lighten his task. Not only was there no loyalty to Butch rule and no organised political life, but one may almost say that there was no nationality. The statement that eighteen languages were