t to
develop themselves against this province."

While New Netherland was thus fearfully menaced by England, the
internal affairs of the province were in a state of prosperity. The
rich soil was producing abundant harvests and farms were extending in
all directions. Emigrants were continually arriving and were delighted
with their new homes. The population of the province now amounted to
full ten thousand. New Amsterdam was a flourishing city, containing
fifteen hundred inhabitants.

This prosperity excited both the jealousy and the covetousness of the
British court. The king resolved, by one bold blow, to rob Holland of
all her American possessions. On the 12th of March, 1664, the king of
England granted to his brother James, the Duke of York, the whole of
Long Island, all the islands in its neighborhood, and all the lands
and rivers from the west side of Connecticut river to the east side of
Delaware Bay. This sweeping grant included the whole of New
Netherland. This was emphatically expelling the Dutch from the New
World.

The first intimation Governor Stuyvesant received of this alarming
movement came to him from Boston. A young man, named Ford, brought the
tidings to New Amsterdam that a fleet of armed ships had sailed from
the naval depot in Portsmouth, England, to enter the Hudson river and
take possession of the whole territory. This intelligence created not
a little panic. The governor summoned his council, and it was decided
to exert every energy in fortifying the city. The hostile fleet might
make its appearance any day.

Money was raised. Powder was ordered from the forts on the Delaware.
Agents were sent to New Haven to purchase provisions. As it was
expected that the fleet would come through the Sound, agents were
stationed along the shore, to transmit the tidings of its approach, so
soon as the sails should be seen in the distant horizon. Several
vessels on the point of sailing with supplies to Curacoa were
detained.

So secretly had the British government moved in this enterprise, that
the governmental authorities, in Holland, had not the slightest
suspicion of the peril to which their colony in New Netherland was
exposed. At the moment when all was agitation in New Amsterdam, and
every hand was busy preparing for the defence, Governor Stuyvesant
received dispatches from Holland, assuring him that no apprehension of
danger from England need be entertained.

"The king of England," it was sai