In accordance with this claim, Massachusetts granted a large section
of land on the east side of the Hudson river, opposite the present
site of Albany, to a number of her principal merchants to open
energetically a trade with the Indians for their furs. An exploring
party was also sent from Hartford to sail up the North river and
examine its shores in reference to future settlements. The English
could not enter the Hudson and pass fort Amsterdam with their vessels
without permission of the Dutch. This permission Stuyvesant
persistently refused.

"The Dutch," said the inflexible governor,

"never have forbidden the natives to trade with other
nations. They prohibit such trade only on their own streams
and purchased lands. They cannot grant Massachusetts or any
other government any title to such privilege or a free
passage through their rivers, without the surrender of their
honor, reputation, property and blood, their bodies and
lives."

CHAPTER X.

THE ESOPUS WAR.

Outrage at Esopus.--New Indian War.--Its
Desolations.--Sufferings of both Parties.--Wonderful
Energies of the Governor.--Difficulties of his
Situation.--The Truce.--Renewal of the War.--The
Mohawks.--The Controversy with Massachusetts.--Indian
Efforts for Peace.--The Final Settlement.--Claims of the
English upon the Delaware.--Renewed Persecution of the
Quakers.

The exploring party from Massachusetts, which had ascended the North
river, found a region around the Wappinger Kill, a few miles below the
present site of Poughkeepsie, which they pronounced to be more
beautiful than any spot which they had seen in New England. Here they
decided to establish their settlement. Stuyvesant, informed of this,
resolved to anticipate them. He wrote immediately to Holland urging
the Company to send out at once as many Polish, Lithuanian, Prussian,
Dutch and Flemish peasants as possible, "to form a colony there."

It would seem that no experience, however dreadful, could dissuade
individuals of the Dutch Colonists from supplying the natives with
brandy. At Esopus, in August, 1659, a man by the name of Thomas
Chambers employed eight Indians to assist him in husking corn. At the
end of their day's work he insanely supplied them with brandy. This
led to a midnight carouse in which the poor savages, bereft of reason,
howled and shrieked and fired their muskets, though with