William Elliot Griffis

“ They did not come with their brains full of spectres of mythology, such as drove the Spaniards into waterless deserts to seek the Gilded Man, Fountains of Youth, the Seven Cities of Cibola, and various other things that exist only in fairyland. They had once given up home and all that was dear to them, when driven out of the Belgic Netherlands, and had fled to Holland to enjoy freedom of conscience. The Republic was now their own Patria, and they were about to trust God again and seek homes in the New World. ”

“ From the beginning to the end of the Dutch rule in America this, the northern end of the colony, was the most peaceful, the best governed, and, on the whole, the most prosporous portion of New Netherland. Manhattan was cosmopolitan. The distinctively Dutch part of the colony and province lay in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. Civic life in New Netherland was typical, not on the manors or the island, but in the village communities of free farmers, as on Long Island, at Schenectady, Esopus, and New Paltz. ”

“ This charter made possible the cradle history of America's greatest city. The first object was war against Spain. The second was commerce for the enrichment of the Dutch Republic. Hence the great powers granted to the company. In the Netherlands were no mines and very little fertile soil. The life of the State must be maintained by riches won in and on the sea, and by trade with other lands. Holland in the seventeenth century had to do what Japan must do in the twentieth, in order to feed her people and maintain her growth. ”