rites,

"archives, journals, and registers prove that the North
river of New Netherland was discovered in the year 1609, by
Hendrick Hudson, captain of the Half Moon, in the service
and at the expense of the Dutch East India Company. Upon the
report of the captain several merchants of Amsterdam sent
another ship, in the following year, up the said river.
These merchants obtained from the States-General a charter
to navigate the same. For their security they erected in
1614, a fort on Castle Island, near fort Orange New
Netherland, including the North river, was afterwards
offered to the West India Company, who, in the year 1624,
two years before Charles I. ascended the throne of England,
actually and effectually possessed and fortified the country
and planted colonies therein. The assertion that the Hudson
river is within the Massachusetts patent granted but
thirty-two years ago, therefore, scarcely deserves a serious
answer."

Notwithstanding the undeniable strength of his argument, Governor
Stuyvesant felt very uneasy. To his friends he said,

"The power of New England overbalances ours tenfold. To protest
against their usurpations would be folly. They would only laugh at
us."

As hostilities still continued with the Esopus Indians, Governor
Stuyvesant again visited that post, hoping to obtain an interview with
the chiefs, and to arrange a peace. Ensign Smith, with a very strong
party of forty men, had utterly routed and put to flight two bands of
Indians, one containing fifty warriors, the other one hundred. He took
twelve warriors prisoners. They were sent to fort Amsterdam. In the
mean time Stuyvesant had succeeded in renewing a treaty of alliance
with the Indian tribes on Long Island, Staten Island, and at
Hackensack, Haverstraw and Weckquaesgeek. The Long Island Indians
consented to send some of their children to fort Amsterdam to be
educated.

The Esopus Indians were now left in a very deplorable condition. Their
brethren, on the upper Hudson, had refused to co-operate with them.
Their routed bands were being driven across the mountains and many of
their warriors were captives. To use the contemptuous language of the
times, "they did nothing now but bawl for peace, peace."

There had never been a more favorable opportunity to secure a lasting
peace, and to win back the affections of the Indians. By universal
admission