disputes may, for the welfare of our mutual subjects, be
prevented."

The commissioners sailed from New Amsterdam and after two days landed
at Milford. Thence they took horses and rode to New Haven, where they
passed the night. The next day they rode to Hartford. The road through
the almost unbroken wilderness was rough and the journey very
fatiguing. It took our fathers four days to traverse the space over
which we can now easily pass in four hours. The General Assembly at
Hartford appointed three persons as a committee of conference to meet
the delegation from New Amsterdam. A long negotiation followed. John
Winthrop, son of Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, was then governor
of Connecticut. He seems to have been the worthy son of his noble
sire. His sense of justice disposed him to respect the claims of the
Dutch delegation. He admitted that the patent issued by the king of
England could by no justice rob the Dutch of their territory, and that
it was not so intended. But the Hartford commissioners were
inexorable. "The opinion of the governor," they said,

"is but the opinion of one man. The grant of the king of
England includes all the land south of the Boston line to
Virginia and to the Pacific Ocean. We do not know any New
Netherland, unless you can show a patent for it from the
king of England."

"But did you not," said the Dutch delegates

"agree by the treaty of 1650, that the boundary line on Long
Island should run from the western part of Oyster bay
straight across the island to the sea; and that the land
east of that line should belong to the English and west to
the Dutch?

"And did you not agree that, on the mainland, the boundary
line between the Dutch and English possessions should begin
upon the west side of Greenwich bay, running twenty miles
into the unknown interior, and that the region west of that
should belong to the Dutch?"

The emphatic reply to those questions was,

"We regard that treaty as an absolute nullity--of no force.
We shall govern ourselves entirely by the patent granted us
by his majesty the king of England. The Dutch may hold as
much as they now actually occupy. But that shall not hinder
us from taking possession of any territory not occupied by
them."

The Dutch then proposed, by way of compromise, that for the present,
Westchester should remain in possession of Co