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 134 Delaware, two other European nations had also formed plantations—the Dutch along the Hudson from 1609 forming the New Netherlands, and the Swedes from 1636 along the Delaware forming New Sweden. The latter, however, lasted only a few years, and was absorbed by the Dutch in 1655. The capital of New Netherlands was established on Manhattan Island, to the south of the palisade still known as Wall Street, and the city was named New Amsterdam. The Hudson is such an important artery of commerce between the Atlantic and the great lakes, that this wedge between the two sets of English colonies would have been a bar to any future progress. This was recognised by Charles II., who in 1664 despatched an expedition to demand its surrender, even though England and Holland were at that time at peace. New Amsterdam was taken, and named New York, after the king's brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II. New Sweden, which at the same time fell into the English hands, was sold as a proprietary plantation to a Jersey man, Sir George Carteret, and to a Quaker, William Penn. By this somewhat high-handed procedure the whole coast-line down to Florida was in English hands.

Both the London and Plymouth Companies had started to form plantations in 1607, and in that very year the French made their first effective settlements in America, at Port Royal and at Nova Scotia, then called Acadie; while, the following year, Samuel de Champlain made settlements at Quebec, and founded French Canada. He explored the lake country, and established settlements down the banks of the St. Lawrence, along which French activity for a long time