to the west the bay seemed to open, the ocean widened to right and left, and the route to Cathay was at last revealed! So believed the great captain and his crew; but further to the west the inhospitable shores were seen to narrow again on the more inhospitable sea, and Hudson found himself surrounded with the terrors of winter in the frozen gulf of the north.

He bore up against the hardships of his situation until his provisions were almost exhausted. Spring was at hand and the day of escape had well-nigh arrived when the crew broke out in mutiny. They seized Sir Henry and his only son with seven others who had remained faithful to the commander, threw them into an open boat and cast them off among the icebergs. Nothing further was ever heard of the illustrious mariner who had contributed so largely to the geographical knowledge of his times and made possible the establishment of still another nationality in the New World.

Meanwhile, in 1610, the Half-Moon was liberated at Dartmouth and returned to Amsterdam. The Dutch merchants reached out eagerly to avail themselves of the discoveries made by Hudson. Ships were at once sent out to engage in the fur trade on the banks of the river which that mariner had discovered. This traffic was profitable in the highest degree and one voyage followed another. In 1614 the States-General of Holland passed an act granting to the merchants of Amsterdam exclusive rights of trade and establishment within the limits of the country explored by Sir Henry Hudson. Under this commission a squadron of five trading vessels soon arrived at Manhattan Island. Here some rude huts had already been built by former traders; but now a fort for the defense of the place was erected, and the name of NEW AMSTERDAM was given to the settlement.

In this same summer of 1614 Captain Adrian Block, com

manding one of the trading ships, made his way through East River into Long Island Sound. Thence he explored the coast as far as Narragansett Bay and even to Cape Cod. Meanwhile Cornelius May, captain of the Fortune, sailed southward along the coast as far as Delaware Bay. Upon these various voyages Holland set up her uncertain claim to the country which was now named NEW NETHERLANDS, extending from Cape Henlopen to Cape Cod.

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CHAPTER V.

WHILE the colonial enterprises of the Spaniards foreran those of the English by more than half a century in time, the latter people were finally more successful than their rivals in the work of colonizing the new continent. They were also more fortunate-if fortune is a part of history. For they obtained possession, as if by auspicious accident, of the better parts of the New World. They struck the eastern shores of America in the latitude of its broadest and most favorable belt. The circumstances of settlement also, though by no means attended with the pomp and patronage that followed the enterprises of France and Spain, were nevertheless of a kind to foretoken permanence, development and empire.

We shall here note in brief paragraphs the leading features of the colonization of Virginia and Massachusetts. The beginning of the seventeenth century brought in a condition of affairs more favorable than hitherto to the planting of English settlements in North America. At the very beginning of his reign the attention of King James I. was turned to the project of colonizing his American possessions. On the 10th of April, 1606, he issued two great patents to men of his kingdom authorizing them to possess and colonize that portion of North America lying between the 34th and 45th parallels of latitude.

Geographically, the great territory thus granted extended from Cape Fear River to Passamaquoddy Bay, and westward to the Pacific. The first patent was directed to cer

tain nobles, gentlemen and merchants residing in London. The corporation was called the London Company and had for its bottom motives colonization and commerce. The second patent was granted to a like body of men which had been organized at Plymouth, in Southwestern England, and was known as the Plymouth Company. In the division of territory between the two corporations the country between the 34th and 38th parallels was assigned to the London Company, that between the 41st and 45th parallels to the Plymouth Company, and the narrow belt of three degrees between the two to each corporation equally, but under the restriction that no settlement of one party should be made. within less than one hundred miles of the nearest settlement of the other.

The leader in organizing the London Company was Bartholomew Gosnold. His principal associates were Edward Wingfield, a rich merchant; Robert Hunt, a clergyman; and Captain John Smith, a man of genius. Others who aided the enterprise were Sir John Popham, Chief-Justice of England; Richard Hakluyt, a historian; and Sir Ferdinand Gorges, a distinguished nobleman.

As to the government of the proposed colony, the royal prerogative was carefully guarded. There was to be a Superior Council resident in England. The members of this body were to be chosen by the King and might be removed at his pleasure. An Inferior Council residing in the colony was provided for; but the members of this body were also to be selected by the royal authority and might be removed at the pleasure of the King. All the elements of government were virtually reserved and vested in the monarch. Paternalism was carried to the extreme in one of the restrictions which required that all the property of the colonists should be held in common for the first five years after organization, The emigrants, however, were

favored in one particular, and that was in the concession that they should retain in the New World all the personal and social rights and privileges of Englishmen.

As early as August, 1606, the Plymouth Company sent out their first ship to America. This vessel, however, was captured by a Spanish man-of-war. Later in the year another ship was dispatched by the company and spent the winter on the American coast. In the following summer a colony of a hundred persons was gathered and carried safely to the mouth of the River Kennebec, where a settlement was planted under favorable omens. A fort was built and named St. George. For a while affairs went well with the settlers. Later in the season about one-half of the company returned to England; a dreadful winter set in; the storehouse was burned; some of the settlers were starved, some frozen; and with the coming of the next summer the miserable remnant escaped to England.

The efforts of the London Company were attended with greater success. A squadron of three vessels was fitted out under command of Christopher Newport. A colony of a hundred and five members was collected on board, and on the 9th of December, 1606, the ship set sail for the New World. The principal men of the company were Winfield, Smith and Newport. The expedition followed the old line of sailing, by way of the Canaries and the West Indies, and did not reach the American coast until April of the following year. The leaders of the colony had steered the fleet for Roanoke Island; but a storm prevailed and the ships were borne northward into the Chesapeake Bay.

On the southern shore of this broad water the pilots soon found the mouth of a beautiful river which was named in honor of King James. Proceeding up this stream about fifty miles, Newport chose a peninsula on the northern bank as the site of his settlement. Here the colonists were de