me. The result was that, the
directors having declined to sanction certain proposals made to them by
Joan Maurice, he sent in his resignation, which was accepted (1644).
It must be remembered that their position was a difficult one. The
charter of the company had been granted for a term of twenty-four years,
and it was doubtful whether the States-General, already beginning to
discuss secretly the question of a separate peace with Spain, would
consent to renew it. The relations with Portugal were very delicate; and
a formidable rebellion of the entire body of Portuguese settlers, aided
by the natives, was on the point of breaking out. Indeed the successors
of Joan Maurice, deprived of any adequate succour from home, were unable
to maintain themselves against the skill and courage of the insurgent
Portuguese leaders. The Dutch were defeated in the field, and one by
one their fortresses were taken. The Reciff itself held out for some
time, but it was surrendered at last in 1654; and with its fall the
Dutch were finally expelled from the territory for the acquisition of
which they had sacrificed so much blood and treasure.

The West India Company at the peace of Muenster possessed, besides the
remnant of its Brazilian dominion, the colony of New Netherland in North
America, and two struggling settlements on the rivers Essequibo and
Berbice in Guiana. New Netherland comprised the country between the
English colonies of New England and Virginia; and the Dutch settlers had
at this time established farms near the coast and friendly relations
with the natives of the interior, with whom they trafficked for furs.
The appointment of Peter Stuyvesant as governor, in 1646, was a time of
real development in New Netherland. This colony was an appanage of the
Chamber of Amsterdam, after which New Amsterdam, the seat of government
on the island of Manhattan, was named. The official trading posts on the
Essequibo and the Berbice, though never abandoned, had for some years a
mere lingering existence, but are deserving of mention in that they were
destined to survive the vicissitudes of fortune and to become in the
18th century a valuable possession. Their importance also is to be
measured not by the meagre official reports and profit and loss accounts
that have survived in the West India Company's records, but by the much
fuller information to be derived from Spanish and Portuguese sources, as
to the remarkable daring and energy of Dutch tr