Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/71

 every description were to be free of taxes for ten years. The colonists were forbidden to make any woolen, linen or cotton cloth, or to weave any other stuffs, on pain of being banished, and arbitrarily punished 'as perjurers,'—a regulation in the spirit of that colonial system adopted by all the nations of Europe, who sought to confine the colonists to the production of articles of export, and to keep them dependent on the mother country for the most necessary manufactures."

The scheme met with favor: several members of the Company selected and purchased the most desirable locations on the Delaware Bay, and on the west bank of the Hudson opposite Manhattan Island. The former was called Swaanendael, or Swansdale; and the latter, to which Staten Island and other tracts were added, was entitled Pavonia. The agents of Van Rensselaer purchased the lands in the vicinity of Fort Orange the name Rensselaerwyck was given to this tract, twenty-four miles long and forty-eight broad. De Vries went to Swansdale and settled there with a small colony, where the town of Lewiston now stands; and some beginnings were made in colonizing Rensselaerwyck and Pavonia.

Difficulties soon occurred between the patroons and the Company in respect to trading privileges, and Minuit, who was accused of favoring the claims of the patroons, was recalled. On his return to Holland with a cargo of furs, he was compelled by stress of weather, to put into Plymouth harbor, where he was detained and threatened with being treated as an interloper. The Dutch title to New Netherland was discussed between the governments of England and Holland, the former insisting upon her light to the territory. De Vries, in December of this year, brought supplies to the little colony at Swansdale but sad to relate, not a living being was to be found there ; the Indians had completely destroyed every thing. De Vries subsequently settled on Staten Island.

Wouter Van Twiller, who succeeded Minuit, appears to have been appointed through family influence, and had few or no qualifications for the post of Director-general. He brought out with him over a hundred soldiers, a school-master, and a clergyman named Bogardus. Trade, however, was still the prevailing object with the Dutch. Nearly twenty years before, Block had ascended the Fresh or Connecticut River, where a profitable trade had commenced with the Indians, and continued to increase in importance. In order to secure this valuable traffic, the Dutch purchased of the Pequods, a tract on the west bank of the Connecticut, near where the city of Hartford now stands, and built a trading-house which was fortified with two cannon, and named the House of Good Hope. Soon after, a small vessel came from Boston with a letter to Van Twiller, from Winthrop, the governor, asserting anew the claims of England, and expressing surprise that the Dutch had taken possession on the