common ruin was heard in the distance. The natives, alarmed by the rapid growth of the power of the English, began that series of aggressions which resulted in the first great Indian war; but before we enter into its details, we must turn for a moment to the South, and account for the presence of the Dutch as neighbors of the New England settlers.
The close of the sixteenth century witnessed the overthrow of the Spanish power in the Netherlands, and, relieved from the oppression under which it had so long groaned, the Dutch republic was able, like the rest of the world, to turn its attention to that golden prize, the short passage to India, the supposed existence of which had instigated so many important expeditions from other countries. Already, long before their independence was acknowledged by the Spanish, the United Netherlands possessed a navy second to none in Europe, and, in the very year (1597) of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, the advanced guard of Dutch geographers were struggling for their lives in the dreary solitudes of Nova Zembla.
Leaving the adventures of Barentz, Heemskerk, and others, we join, as the first Dutchman to travel in the districts now under consideration, the celebrated Henry Hudson, who, after one or two unsuccessful voyages to the North-east, under the auspices of the English Muscovy Company, was invited, in 1609, to take service with the Dutch East India Company. He consented, and was appointed by his new employers to the command of yet another expedition to the extreme North, his instructions, however, being this time of a sufficiently elastic nature to admit of his altering his course if desirable.
Hudson set sail from Amsterdam on his new trip, on the 4th April, 1609, in a modest little vessel named the Half Moon, with a crew of some sixteen or eighteen Dutch and English sailors, and, having crossed the Atlantic in safety, he steered due north for Nova Zembla. Before long, the ice, as he had expected, effectually barred his progress, and, after a consultation with his men, he determined to alter his course, and seek for a south-west passage somewhere to the north of the English colony of Virginia. A flying visit for fresh water was then paid to the Faroe Islands, and, after touching at Newfoundland, the Half Moon sailed down the coast of North America, anchoring on the 18th July, in a large bay, probably that of Penobscot. Here a party of Indians, already used to peaceful trading with the French, came out in two canoes to make acquaintance with their visitors, and were met—to the shame of the Dutch be it spoken—by a boat-load of armed
