We are now arrived at the period of the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers from Holland to New England; yet, although at this very time religious controversy ran high in Holland, and liberty was outraged in the persons of her best and noblest citizens, Grotius and Olden Barneveld, the former of whom was imprisoned for life, and the latter an old man of threescore and twelve, perished on the scaffold, we do not find that any great impetus, as in England, was given to emigration. The Dutch were traders, and nothing short of trade could make them move. As yet their American settlements had been formed under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company; but in 1621 a Dutch West India Company was incorporated, which held a charter for four-and-twenty years, conferring upon it the exclusive privilege of trafficking and planting colonies “from the straits of Magellan to the remotest north.” There was here scope wide enough to satisfy the most enterprising adventurers. All who now were disposed to leave Holland, from whatever cause it might be, had an opportunity, and accordingly emigration began on a more systematic plan than formerly. In 1623, a number of settlers went out under the command of Cornelius May, who not only visited Manhattan, but entering the Bay of Delaware, ascended the river of that name, which was then called South River. May took possession of the country for the Dutch, built Fort Nassau in the present State of New Jersey, and being strictly just to the natives, left a memory behind him which was long respected by them. The country from the southern shore of the Delaware to Cape Cod was now designated New Netherlands. A colony was established on Manhattan, called New Amsterdam; the Dutch had now homes in the New World, and in 1625, the first child of Dutch parentage was born here. In 1625, Peter Minuits arrived at Manhattan as governor of New Netherlands, which office he held for six years. It must not be imagined, however, that these settlers, like those of New England, brought with them an inborn spirit of political organisation; all power remained in the hands of the company, and this colony was for many years merely an establishment of trade, where European goods were exchanged for the peltries of the Indian.