f a
charter to the Company of New Netherland (1614) was a fresh departure.
The voyage of Henry Hudson in the Dutch service when, in 1610, he
explored the coast of North America and sailed up the river called by
his name, led certain Amsterdam and Hoorn merchants to plan a settlement
near this river; and they secured a charter giving them exclusive rights
from Chesapeake bay to Newfoundland. The result was the founding of the
colony of New Netherland, with New Amsterdam on Manhattan island as its
capital. This settlement was at first small and insignificant, but,
being placed midway between the English colonies on that same coast, it
added one more to the many questions of dispute between the two
sea-powers.

Willem Usselincx had all this time continued his agitation for the
erection of a West India Company; and at last, with the renewal of the
war with Spain in 1621, his efforts were rewarded. The charter granted
by the States-General (June 3, 1621) gave to the company for twenty-four
years the monopoly of navigation and trade to the coast-lands of America
and the West Indies from the south-end of Newfoundland to the Straits of
Magellan and to the coasts and lands of Africa from the tropic of Cancer
to the Cape of Good Hope. The governing body consisted of nineteen
representatives, the Nineteen. The States-General contributed to the
capital 1,000,000 fl., on half of which only they were to receive
dividends. They also undertook in time of war to furnish sixteen ships
and four yachts, the company being bound to supply a like number. The
West India Company from the first was intended to be an instrument of
war. Its aims were buccaneering rather than commerce. There was no
secret about its object; it was openly proclaimed. Its historian De Laet
(himself a director) wrote, "There is no surer means of bringing our
Enemy at last to reason, than to infest him with attacks everywhere in
America and to stop the fountain-head of his best finances." After some
tentative efforts, it was resolved to send out an expedition in great
force; but the question arose, where best to strike? By the advice of
Usselincx and others acquainted with the condition of the defences of
the towns upon the American coast, Bahia, the capital of the Portuguese
colony of Brazil, was selected, as specially vulnerable. Thus in the
West, as in the East, Portugal was to suffer for her unwilling
subjection to the crown of Castile.

The consent of the States-