ing a colony and fort on the south end of the island, brought up the population of Nieu Nederlandt to two hundred souls. The Company, desiring to stimulate colonization, in 1629 projected the manorial or patroon system; a combination of feudal idea and Latin name, patronus. Killiaen Van Rensselaer, one of the directors and a rich merchant of Amsterdam, at once obtained an extensive grant of land south of Fort Orange and, by the purchase of the land from the Indians and the planting of a colony, became the patroon of Rensselaerswyck. He never visited his "colonie," but before his death in 1646, he had sent from Holland over two hundred artisans and farmers, and included in his manor a territory forty-eight by twenty-four miles, and also another tract of sixty-two thousand acres.
Thus Albany began with a Dutch imprint, which to this day has given to the city its distinctive mark. Forty years of Dutch sagacity and thrift rapidly developed the colony. It was on the whole a prosperous period, enlivened by chronic disputes between the garrison and the manor, and disquieting rumors regarding belligerent Indians and the French. It throws on a small canvas sturdy personages and stir-
