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On the eve of the American Revolution it ranked second (behind Philadelphia) in population size among the colonial municipalities but was first in cosmopolitanism. THE FOUNDING Although Giovanni da Verazzano, an Italian navigator in the serivce of King Francis I of France, was the first European to leave a written record of his discoveries in the vicinity of New York City, it was the voyage of exploration of Henry Hudson eighty-five years later, in 1609, that led directly to white settlement in this part of the New World. Hudson, an English sea captain in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, sailed across the Atlantic with a crew of eighteen in the Half Moon and explored the North American coast from Newfoundland to the Chesapeake Bay. In a vain effort to find a northwest passage to the East Indies, Hudson entered what is now known as New York City and sailed up the great river that today bears his name to a point near present-day Albany before returning, disappointed, to Europe. Upon Hudson's return to Amsterdam in 1610, a group of enterprising Dutch merchants sent a ship to the newly explored river to establish a profitable fur trade. Other voyages of exploration and trade soon followed. The Indians generally were friendly to the Europeans, and when in 1613 the ship of Captain Adriaen Block accidentally burned, he and his crew received help from the native inhabitants in securing food and shelter until they had built a new vessel. In 1614 a group of Dutch merchants who had sponsored Block's voyages, as well as those of other explorer-traders, received from the States General of the United Netherlands a monopoly of trade in the region from 40° to 45° north latitude, effective for four voyages, or three years. This area, lying between New France and Virginia, was given the name of New Netherland. In 1621 the States General incorporated the Dutch West India Company which was given a monopoly of trade between Dutch ports and the west coast of Africa and all the coasts of America. The new company had the power to enter into treaties with the natives, to appoint governors and other administrators, and to promote colonization as well as trade. In the spring of 1624 the Dutch West India Company sent over the ship New Netherland, under the command of Cornelis Jacobsen May, "with a command of thirty families, mostly Walloons, to plant a colony." The Walloons were French-speaking Belgians who had applied in 1622 for transportation to New Netherland as colonists. About eighteen families were brought to the present site of Albany where they constructed Fort Orange. Smaller groups were settled elsewhere. The establishment of a permanent colony began in earnest in 1625 and 1626 when the West India Company sent several ships to the Hudson, or North River (as distinguished from the Delaware or South River), carrying in addition to farm people, cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs, as well as "wagons, ploughs and all other implements of husbandry." Peter Minuit, who was sent to New Netherland as Director General of the colony, bought Manhattan Island from the native Indians for sixty guilders. A report reaching Amsterdam in November 1626 indicated "the colony is now established on the Manhates, where a fort has been staked out by Master Kryn Frederycks, an engineer." Outside the fort thirty houses had been built. "In order to strengthen with people the colony near the Manhates" most of the families living at Fort Orange and at Fort Nassau (on the Delaware) were brought to this new settlement which was named New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, the last director general under the Dutch, was honest and capable, but he was also proud and tyrannical, and in 1649 eleven leaders of the community, reflecting popular discontent, asked the Dutch government to grant municipal government to New Amsterdam. It was not until 1653, however, that municipal government was allowed the town. New Amsterdam's population at this time has been estimated at seven or eight hundred inhabitants. A survey made by Captain DeKoninck in 1656 indicated that the new municipality had one hundred and twenty houses and one thousand souls. The granting of municipal status to the fortified trading post on Manhattan Island occurred during the first of three wars fought between England and the Netherlands, strong commercial rivals, and seems to have been a concession made to soothe the dissatisfied colonists. Trade rivalry between the two European powers continued, and in 1664 the English king, Charles II, determined to annex the Dutch colony without waiting for a formal declaration of war. The region between the Connecticut and the Delaware was given to his brother James, duke of York, and to assure the gift the monarch sent Colonel Richard Nicholls and a fleet of four fully armed frigates to the Dutch colony. When the English forces appeared in the harbor, the citizenry of New Amsterdam, fearful of the destruction of their town, and still discontented with the administration of the Dutch West India Company, urged Stuyvesant to surrender. This he did on September 6, 1664, and all of New Netherland passed into English hands. The principal town, with a population "full fifteen hundred souls strong" was renamed New York. The inhabitants, burgher and farmer, were promised in the name of the king of England "free and peaceable possession of their property, unobstructed trade and navigation, not only to the King's dominions, but also to the Netherlands with their own ships and people." Home