Now in 1609 Henry Hudson, an English sailor in the pay of the Dutch,
came seeking the North-West passage. He did not find it, but sailed
into Delaware Bay and up the beautiful river which is now known
by his name as far as where the town of Albany now stands. It was
autumn when Hudson sailed up the river; the sky was gloriously
blue, and the woods aflame with red and yellow, and he went home
to tell the Dutch that he had found "as pleasant a land with grass
and flowers and goodly trees as ever he had seen," "a very good
land to fall with, and a pleasant land to see."
By right of Hudson's discoveries the Dutch claimed all the land
between Cape Cod and Chesapeake Bay, and, tempted by his glowing
descriptions, they very soon established trading ports upon the
Hudson which they called the North River. The Delaware they called
the South River.
The English too claimed the same land, and it was not until some
years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers that the Dutch
settled in the country. Then they formed a company and bought the
Island of Manhattan where New York now stands from the Indians for
about five pounds' worth of glass beads and other trifles.
Here they built a little fort which they called New Amsterdam in
1626.
The colony grew slowly. For the life was by no means an easy one,
and the people of Holland lived in freedom and religious peace at
home, so they had no need to cross the Atlantic to seek them.
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