In 1609, the year after the founding of Quebec, Henry {63} Hudson, an Englishman in the Netherlands service, sailed at the beginning of September into the river which still bears his name, seeking, as he sought till his death, a North-West Passage to Asia. The name of New Netherland was formally given to the scene of his discovery in 1614, and in 1615 a small fort was built on Manhattan Island--the first little seed of the city of New York. In 1621, the Netherlands West India Company came into being; and in the following year New Netherland, with the beaver trade, which was its chief attraction, was placed in the hands of the company. In settling on the Hudson the Dutch conflicted with English claims, and the Government of the Netherlands seem to have recognized that there was a flaw in their title. However, the existence of New Netherland as a Dutch possession continued till the year 1664, when it was surrendered to an English force sent out by the Duke of York, who had obtained from his brother, Charles II, a grant of the territory. The English occupation was confirmed by the Peace of Breda in 1667; and though a Dutch fleet recovered the colony in 1673, in the following year, by the Treaty of Westminster, it was finally given up to the English. New Amsterdam, afterwards New York, was the chief settlement of New Netherland; but Dutch trade and colonization extended up the valley of the Hudson, where tracts of land were obtained by _patroons_ or large landowners, who were granted exclusive privileges by the company on condition of planting families of settlers upon their holdings. The chief inland colony was Rensselaerswyck, called after an Amsterdam merchant of the name of Rensselaer, and its centre was Fort Orange, now Albany; while on the Mohawk river, about twenty miles above its confluence with the Hudson, and rather less in a direct line from Albany, was the settlement of Schenectady.[19] [Footnote 19: For an account of the Dutch on the Hudson see _A Bibliographical and Historical Essay on the Dutch Books and Pamphlets relating to {64} New Netherland_, by G. M. Asher, LL.D. (Amsterdam, Frederick Müller, 1868), referred to above. See also Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_, vol. iv, chap. viii.] [Sidenote: _Friendship between the Dutch and the Iroquois._]