=64. New York taken by the English.=—These successes of the Dutch, and the fact that their territory cut off New England from Virginia and gave Dutch traders, by means of the Hudson River, the best possible opportunity of reaching the Indians, made it impossible for England long to acquiesce in the continuance of Dutch rule in the New World. There had already been trouble in Connecticut, on Long Island, and on the Schuylkill (§§ 55 and 61), and things came nearly to a crisis in 1654, when Cromwell sent out a fleet to take New Netherland. But peace between England and Holland delayed the crisis for ten years. In 1664 Charles II., as we have seen (§ 56), renewed the English claim to the territory, and acting on his orders Colonel Nicolls menaced New Amsterdam with a small fleet, which carried English regulars and Connecticut volunteers. Governor Stuyvesant wished to hold out, but the townsmen surrendered in haste. The other Dutch settlements yielded rapidly, and the whole Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida thus became English. New Netherland was now called New York, in honor of its proprietor, the Duke of York, Charles’s brother—afterward James II. Nicolls was made governor, and the prosperity of the colony was greatly augmented. =65. Government of New York.=—Dutch customs were on the whole little changed, but the form of government was modified in accordance with English precedents. The towns were provided with a local government, under an elected constable and overseers. Several towns formed a “riding,”[39] under the jurisdiction of a sheriff; later, the ridings became counties. Thus New York had an intermediate system between the town government of New England and the county government of Virginia (§§ 82 and 89). The conduct of colonial affairs, however, depended entirely on the governor and his council. The early governors presented much the same contrasts of character as had been seen in the other colonies. Some were excellent, others were tyrannical. On the whole, the colony managed to grow and prosper, although in 1673, when England and Holland were at war, a Dutch fleet captured the town of New York. The next year the province was given back to the English by treaty, and, curiously enough, the first governor under the new English rule—Edmund Andros, the later tyrant of New England—gave the colonists an excellent administration. After a few years the people clamored for greater political privileges. An electoral assembly of deputies and certain reforms were in consequence granted by the Duke of York; but when he came to the throne as James II., he restored the old illiberal system.