The Dutch Founding of New York

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1903. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... XVIII ON the side of ethics, the taking over of New Netherland by the English admits of differing opinions. Mr. Brodhead flat-footedly calls it " bold robbery." Dr. Asher, himself a Dutchman, regards it as the occupation by the English of territory that was theirs by right of discovery, of settlement, and of specific grant. For my own part--lacking the temerity to pass judgment upon so vexed a question--I am content to ignore the ethical side of that easy conquest and to ground my approval of it on the fact that, as things then stood in Europe and in America, it was the only practicable treatment of an impossible problem; to which, with submission, I add my conviction that for all the parties in interest it was the best substitute for a solution possible under the conditions which obtained. The gain to England was so obvious that it need not be discussed. The gain to Holland was getting rid of a nettle of a colony which--by involving her in an outlay of more than a million guilders above returns, and by most dangerously complicating her relations with her most powerful rival--from first to last did little but sting her hands. The gain to the English colonies in America was an immediate enlargement of intercolonial trade: with a resultant solidarity of interests which strongly helped--a little more than a century later--to bring about their formal union and their definite independence. The gain to New Netherland--the essential matter here to be considered--was escape from a harsh and incompetent government, that crushed trade and that did much to make life unendurable, to the fostering care of a government that developed trade in every direction and that in its treatment of individuals erred on the side of laxness. Out of that laxness came ill results. That the m...