the Hope of Amsterdam and the same judgment entered.[1] All trade with Holland carried on after that period had first to pass through England. In consequence of the expense attending this necessity, it soon became unprofitable.[2]
The commerce between the Colony and the Dutch community seated at New Amsterdam was one of very considerable volume. It was so important, indeed, that in December, 1652, when hostilities were soon to break out between Holland and England, the Directors of the West India Company urged upon Stuyvesant the strong expediency of maintaining the most harmonious relations with the people of Virginia in order to retain their trade.[3] In the following spring, a commission was dispatched to Jamestown for the purpose of concluding a treaty, although the English and Dutch were now actually at war. The Governor there did not consider that he had the power to enter into such an arrangement without the permission of the authorities of the Commonwealth. A few months later, Stuyvesant sent a second commission, who were to ask for the continuation of the commercial intercourse between Virginia and the people of New Amsterdam, and who were also to secure the right to pay what the merchants of the Dutch province owed in the Colony, and to collect what was due them by its inhabitants. It was proposed that the grant of these privileges should be wholly provisional until the consent of their respective governments in Europe to the agreement had been obtained. This arrangement, it would appear, led to an extensive sale of merchandise in Virginia.[4]
