HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 17

Captain Cornelis Jacobsen May, of Hoorn, who was appointed the first director of the colony. Starting from the Texel early in March, and sailing by way of the Canary Islands and the Guinea coast, the “New Netherland” arrived at the North River in the beginning of May. Eight men were landed at Manhattan Island to represent the company there, and several families, as well as sailors and single men, were dispatched to the settlements on the South River, and to the Connecticut, while the ship proceeded up the North River until she reached “Fort Orange” (the present site of Albany), where eighteen families were disembarked, and immediately commenced farming operations.

The year 1624, under May’s judicious management, was a prosperous one; the industry of the pioneer colonists fulfilled the expectations of their patrons, the forts on the North and Delaware rivers were completed, and the peltry-trade was so well prosecuted that it returned to the company’s treasury the handsome sum of twenty thousand guilders. Encouraged by these signs, the company dispatched to Manhattan, in the spring of 1625, a vessel well laden with “necessaries,” which unfortunately fell into the hands of one of the enemy’s privateers. The loss, however, was promptly made good, at the risk of one of the directors of the company, by two ships carrying a fine stock of cattle, a full equipment of seeds and farming utensils, and forty-five emigrants, among whom were six entire families. The growing colony, thus increased, now numbered over one hundred souls, and under the Directorship of William Verhulst, who had succeeded May, prospered greatly. In May, 1626, Peter Minuit arrived in New Netherland, and succeeded Verhulst as director-general of the province. His administration commenced with vigor and sagacity; Manhattan Island was purchased from the natives for the sum of sixty guilders (equivalent to

the Walloons, the Dutch were probably indebted for much of the repute which they gained as a nation in many branches of manufactures. Finding in Holland a free scope for their religious opinions, the Walloons soon introduced the public use of their church service, which, to this day, bears witness to the characteristic toleration and liberality of the Fatherland.”—Brodhead, i. 146. These Walloons had previously applied to the English government for permission to emigrate to Virginia, but receiving no encouragement in that quarter, turned their attention to New Netherland, and were gladly accepted by the West India Company, under the auction of the Provincial.