career of exploration which, after Champlain's death in 1635,
connected the fame of their order with the great lakes and the
Mississippi. The king of France appointed Chevalier Razilly governor
of Acadia, who designated as his lieutenants Claude de la Tour's son
Charles, for the portion west of St. Croix; and Charles de Menou,
Sieur d'Aulnay Charmise, for the portion to the east.[12] They claimed
dominion for France as far as Cape Cod.

Subsequently the two rivals quarrelled, and in 1641 D'Aulnay obtained
an order from the king deposing De la Tour, but the latter refused
obedience and sent an envoy to Boston in November, 1641, to solicit
aid. This envoy was kindly treated, and some of the Puritan merchants
despatched a pinnace to trade with De la Tour; but they met with
D'Aulnay at Pemaquid, who threatened to make prize of any vessel which
he caught engaged in the fur trade in Acadia.[13]

The Dutch claim to America was comparatively recent, as it was not
until 1597 that voyages were undertaken from Holland to the continent.
In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was chartered, and in 1609 sent
out Henry Hudson, an Englishman by birth, to seek a way to India by
the northeast. After sailing to Nova Zembla, where fogs and fields of
ice closed against him the strait of Veigatz, he changed his course
for Newfoundland and coasted southward to Chesapeake Bay. Returning on
his path he entered the Hudson in September, 1609, and stayed four
weeks exploring the river and trafficking with the natives.[14]

The reports brought by him to Europe of a newly discovered country
abounding in fur-bearing animals created much interest, and in 1612
some merchants in Holland sent Christiansen and Blok to the island of
Manhattan, where they built a little fort, which, it is stated, Argall
attacked in 1613. Losing his ship by fire, Blok built a yacht of
sixteen tons at Manhattan, and with this small craft was the first
explorer (1614) of the Connecticut River. He also visited Narragansett
Bay, and gave to its shores the name of Roode Eiland (now Rhode
Island).

After his return home the merchants obtained from the States-General a
charter for three years' monopoly of the trade of New Netherland, as
the present New York was now first formally called. It was defined as
extending between New France and Virginia, from the fortieth to the
forty-fifth degree of north latitude.[15] After this New Netherland
continued to be resorted to by Dutch tr