The crushing blow fell in August 1664. In the March of that year Charles II. granted to his brother James, Duke of York, all the territory then held by the Dutch, on the plea that it was really British soil by right of discovery. This was the mere reassertion of an old claim, for James I. had demanded the territory by right of "occupancy" as early as 1621, and Charles I. did the same by "first discovery, occupation, and possession"; Cromwell too had attempted to make possession a real thing in 1654, but the first Dutch War ended too soon. The action of Charles II. may well be regarded as a very practical declaration of war. Colonel Richard Nicolls was appointed to seize the New Netherlands. He was the most important of the Commissioners sent out to report on the state of the colonies, and was a good soldier, a man of great courage, but at the same time forbearing and lenient. The colony which he was ordered to attack contained a population of about 1500 souls, 600 of whom were of English stock, dwelling for the most part on Long Island, which was partially Anglicised by an influx of settlers from Connecticut and New Haven. At the end of August Nicolls arrived off New Amsterdam with four ships, and 450 soldiers and Connecticut volunteers. On September 4 he sent terms to Stuyvesant, stating that "His Majesty, being tender of the effusion of Christian blood, confirms and secures estates, life and liberty to every Dutch inhabitant who shall readily submit to his Government, but those who shall oppose his Majesty's gracious intention must expect all the miseries of a war which they bring on themselves."[172] Stuyvesant offered very little resistance, and Nicolls soon found himself in possession of New Amsterdam. The Dutch West India Company failed to see that they had been largely to blame for leaving their colony inadequately defended, and preferred to pour out the vials of their wrath upon the unfortunate Stuyvesant, who, according to the Company, "first following the example of heedless interested parties, gave himself no other concern than about the prosperity of his bouweries, and, when the pinch came, allowed himself to be rode over by Clergymen, women and cowards, in order to surrender to the English what he could defend with reputation, for the sake of thus saving their private properties."[173]