Now Peter Minuit was honest, and when he found that the Dutch were living on Indian land to which they had helped themselves, he was not content. So he called together the tribes which lived on Manhattan and, while the painted warriors squatted on the ground, spoke to them in words like these: "My brothers, we have come to trade with you. And that we may be near to buy your furs when you have gathered them, we wish to live among you, on your land. It is your land, and as we do not mean to steal it from you, I have asked you to meet me here that I may buy from you this island which you call Manhattan." Then, in payment for the island, Peter Minuit offered the Indians ribbons, knives, rings, and colored beads--things dearly loved by the savages. The bargain was soon closed, and for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets the Dutch became the owners of Manhattan Island. [Illustration: NEW YORK IN OLDEN TIMES] The Dutch settlement on Manhattan was called New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was a pretty town, with its quaint Dutch houses built gable end toward the street and its gardens bright with flowers. Dutch windmills with their long sweeping arms rose here and there, and near the water stood the fort. But though New Amsterdam grew and prospered in the years after Peter Minuit bought Manhattan, life there did not run as smoothly as it might. In time Peter Stuyvesant came to be governor, and a stern, tyrannical ruler he was. He always saw things from the Dutch West India Company's point of view, not from the colonists'. Disagreement followed disagreement till the people were nearly at the end of their patience. Then, one day in 1664, an English fleet sailed into the bay. A letter was brought ashore for Governor Stuyvesant. England too, so it seemed, laid claim to this land along the Hudson River, and now asked the Dutch governor to give up his colony to the Duke of York, a brother of England's king. This done, the Dutch colonists could keep their property, and all their rights and privileges. In fact, even greater privileges would then be given them. [Illustration: WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE] In a towering rage Governor Stuyvesant tore the letter into bits and stamped upon them and called upon his colonists to rise and help him repulse the English. But the colonists would not rise. They felt that there was nothing to gain by so doing. The English promised much, far more than they had had under the rule of tyrannical Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company. What could the governor do? Surely he alone could not defeat the English fleet. So at last, sorrowfully and reluctantly, he signed a surrender, and the Dutch Colony was given over to the English. Once in possession, the English renamed New Amsterdam, calling it New York. Now followed a hundred years of ever-increasing river, coast, and foreign trade, of growing industries, of prosperity. And then--the Revolution.