10 HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.

and the savage inhabitants who around in canoes curiously fashioned “from single hollowed trees,” were comely in form and feature, and friendly in disposition. From its mouth to the head of tide-water, Hudson and his companions explored the noble river which stretched northward before them, spending a month of pleasant dalliance and adventure amid the varied and picturesque scenery of these virgin wilds, which they enthusiastically pronounced to be “as fine a land as the foot of man can tread upon.” Though disappointed in finding that the Great River was not the long-sought and much-desired passage to the Eastern Seas, they were deeply impressed with the wonderful and apparently illimitable resources of the country which it traversed, and fully appreciated the value of their discovery to the commercial interests of their native land. The United Netherlands, whose flag they first displayed amid these solitudes, bad just attained to the rank of an independent nation. Their energy and heroic persistence in waging a forty years’ war with Spain had, at last, wrung from the Spanish monarch a twelve years' truce, which was in fact a recognition of their sovereignty and independence, and with which was coupled a tacit admission of their right to the free and undisturbed navigation of the seas. The treaty, signed at Antwerp, on the 9th of April, 1609, only three days after Hudson's departure on his voyage of discovery, virtually established to the States the nationality by which, according to the laws of nations, they were fully entitled to the fruits of his magnificent discoveries. These fruits comprised that vast portion of the North American continent included between the two. extreme points at which he touched upon the coast; viz., Cape Cod on the north, and Cape May, at the mouth of the Delaware River, on the south. To this brave and enterprising people, suddenly relieved from the excitements of an arduous and protracted war, the discovery of so vast and rich a territory came most opportunely and gratefully. Their energies, hitherto absorbed in the defence of their rights, were now directed into the new field of commercial adventure thus suddenly opened to them by the fortunate voyage of the “Half Moon.” Most alluring, among the varied treasures offered by the New World to the expanding commerce of Holland, was the inexhaustible abundance