Although the country around the Hudson was claimed by the Dutch by right of Hudson’s discovery, still several years elapsed before they took formal possession; nevertheless, in 1610, a company of merchants of Amsterdam sent out a ship laden with merchandise, to trade with the natives, of whom Hudson had reported so favourably; and this first speculation proving lucrative, a regular traffic was established, and a few huts and trading-houses erected on Manhattan, the promontory on which New York stands. It was this early Dutch settlement which Captain Argall, the kidnapper of Pocahontas, compelled to acknowledge the authority of the English, when he returned from his piratical expedition against the French at Port Royal, and the Dutch, too weak to offer resistance, submitted, but hoisted again their flag as soon as he had disappeared. Unlike the early colonists of New England, the first Dutch settlers kept no records of their movements, so that it is impossible to follow them with any accuracy. All that is known is, that in 1614, the States-General volunteered to any adventurous company four years’ monopoly of traffic with all newly-discovered lands; on which a number of merchants fitted out five ships for trade and exploration. The head of this expedition was Hendrik Christiaanse, who with three vessels went northward as far as Cape Cod, and the other two, commanded by Adrian Blok, advanced to New York Bay. Here his ship accidentally taking fire, he built a yacht, and sailing through East River, discovered the insular position of Long Island, giving his name to an island east of the Sound, which it still retains. Blok is supposed to have discovered the Housatonic and Connecticut rivers, and to have explored the Narragansett Bay, after which, meeting with Christiaanse, they returned to New York harbour, and in the autumn of the same year, probably, a small rude fort was erected on the southern point of Manhattan. While Christiaanse and Blok were thus engaged, May steered southward, and exploring the Delaware Bay, conferred his own name on the southern cape of the present State of New Jersey. The following year Hendrikson ascended the Schuylkill in the yacht built by Blok; a small fort was built at Albany on the Hudson, and Jacob Elkins, formerly a merchant’s clerk, received from Christiaanse the appointment of commissary of these fortified trading establishments. Colonisation was here a slow operation. The Dutch as yet appeared in America merely as traders, and even in 1620 the United Provinces had put forth no claim to territory. In 1617 a treaty was concluded between the Dutch and the Iroquois, in which, the Delawares and Mohegans were also parties. This was the treaty with the Five Nations, which was maintained with good faith for many years, and by opposing a barrier of friendly Indians between themselves and the French, prevented the encroachments of the latter.