HISTORY OF BROOKLYN 15.

15 or Boards located in different cities of the Seven United Provinces; the principal one being that of Amsterdam, to which was confided the especial superintendence of the Province of New Netherland. General executive powers for all purposes except of declaring warwhich could not be done without the approbation of the States-GeneralÐwere intrusted to a Board of Nineteen delegates from the several chambers, and including one delegate who represented the States-General. A million of guilders and a defence “against every person, in free navigation and traffic,” was promised to the company by the States-General, who were also, in case of war, to Ògive them for their assistanceÓ sixteen ships of war of three hundred tons burden and four yachts of eighty tons, fully equipped. The company, however, were to man and support these vessels, besides providing an equal number of their own, the whole to be under command of an admiral appointed by the States-General.

The organization of the company was delayed by various causes for a period of two years, when its articles of internal regulation, the charter having, in the interval, been somewhat modified, were formally approved by the States-General on the 21st of June, 1623.

Meanwhile, the spirit of enterprise had not lain dormant. Amsterdam ships, under special licences, had been steadily pursuing their profitable voyages to New Netherland, and the peltry-trade had assumed larger proportions, not only on the North River, but on the Delaware, the Connecticut, along the shores of Long Island, and as far to the eastward as Narragansett and Buzzard's Bay, within twenty miles of the newly founded English settlement at New Plymouth. In Holland, the press began to teem with publications describing in glowing terms the beauties, wonders, and advantages of America, and the public mind was constantly quickened by the news of fresh discoveries, and the flattering reports brought by adventurous mariners from those far-off lands.

In England, also, public attention was at this time strongly directed towards the Western continent by the discoveries of Capt. John Smith, the plantations established in Virginia, and the charter recently granted for the settlement of New England. Maintaining, as they ever did, the right (by discovery, possession, and charters) to the entire American coast between the Spanish possessions in