ed in 1622, and its attention was at once
called to the necessity of founding a permanent colony in the New
Netherland in order to preserve the country from seizure by the English,
now established in New Plymouth to the north, as well as Virginia on the
south. Dutch traders had not been idle during the period between the
lapse of the old charter and organization under the new and the West
India Company found its operations greatly facilitated by the labors of
the pioneers. The storehouse on Manhattan Island had been enlarged, a
fort had been erected on an island near the site of Albany, and the
Iroquois had learned that in the Dutch they had an ally who would assist
them with arms at least against their enemies on the St. Lawrence. The
West India Company began wisely the work of settlement. They invited the
Walloons, Protestant refugees from the Belgic provinces of Spain, to
emigrate to New Netherland. They were most desirable settlers for a new
country, as industrious as they were intelligent and religious, and well
versed in agriculture as well as the mechanical and finer arts. Having
abandoned their homes for conscience' sake they could be trusted to do
their duty loyally to their adopted State, and to advance to the best of
their ability the interests of the Company.

Thirty families, including one hundred and ten men, women and children,
and most of them Walloons, were in the first emigration. Four of the
families, young couples who had been married on shipboard, and who,
perhaps, concluded that they would get along better apart from the older
households, chose to settle on the Delaware, four miles below the site of
Philadelphia, where they built a blockhouse and called it Fort Nassau.
Eight seamen went with them and formed a part of their colony, which grew
and prospered. Others of the emigrants went to Long Island; some founded
Albany; some settled on the Connecticut River, and several families made
their homes in what is at present Ulster County. The Company sent over
Peter Minuit as Governor in 1626, who bought from the natives their title
to Manhattan Island, paying therefor trinkets and liquor to the value of
twenty-four dollars. Governor Minuit built a fortification at the
southern end of the island, and called it New Amsterdam. The
States-General constituted the colony a county of Holland, and bestowed
on it a seal, being a shield enclosed in a chain, with an escutcheon on
which was the figure of a beaver. T