CHAPTER VII.
THE DUTCH CALVINIST COLONY ON THE HUDSON AND THE SWEDISH LUTHERAN COLONY ON THE DELAWARE--THEY BOTH FALL UNDER THE SHADOW OF GREAT BRITAIN.
When the Englishman Henry Hudson, in the Dutch East India Company's ship, the "Half-moon," in September, 1609, sailed up "the River of Mountains" as far as the site of Albany, looking for the northwest passage to China, the English settlement at Jamestown was in the third year of its half-perishing existence.

More than thirteen years were yet to pass before the Pilgrims from England by way of Holland should make their landing on Plymouth Rock.
But we are not at liberty to assign so early a date to the Dutch settlement of New York, and still less to the church.

There was a prompt reaching out, on the part of the immensely enterprising Dutch merchants, after the lucrative trade in peltries; there was a plying to and fro of trading-vessels, and there were trading-posts established on Manhattan Island and at the head of navigation on the Hudson, or North River, and on the South River, or Delaware.

Not until the great Dutch West India Company had secured its monopoly of trade and perfected its organization, in 1623, was there a beginning of colonization.

In that year a company of Walloons, or French-speaking Hollanders, was planted near Albany, and later arrivals were settled on the Delaware, on Long Island, and on Manhattan.