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MAP OF NEW NETHERLANDS,
With a view of New Amsterdam, (now New-York,) A. D. 1656,
Copied for the N. Y. Hist. Soc. from the Map of Vander Donck

COLLECTIONS

OF THE

NEW-YORK

HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

SECOND SERIES.

VOLUME I.

Is het schoonste landt om te bouwen als ick oijt mijn leven met voeten betrat.-
It is the finest country for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon.
HUDSON'S JOURNAL, QUOTED BY DE LAET.

NEW-YORK:

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY,

BY H. LUDWIG, 72 VESEY-STREET.

1841.

F 116 .N551

v./

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841,

By GEORGE FOLSOM,

FOR THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

in the District Court of the Southern District of New-York.

PREFACE.

The volume now presented to the public, the first in a new series of the Collections of the New-York Historical Society, is almost exclusively taken up with the annals of the Dutch colonists by whom the arts of civilization were originally planted on the banks of the Hudson. A noble commonwealth has sprung up within the limits of their ancient jurisdiction, now rivalling in population and extent some of the monarchies of the old world. Beginning with the first glimpses of a discovery of our sea-coast, it has been our aim to bring together the earliest notices of Hudson's memorable voyage that disclosed the existence of the great river of the mountains,' now better known under the name of the navigator himself, and to collect the scattered traces of the first attempts to colonize the country. The primitive settlements on Manhattan island and near Albany-the gradual spread of population into the interior-the perils and hardships-the difficulties and embarrassments, with which the early colonists had to contend, and their final triumph over them all-respectively come under consideration in the following pages. Yet it should be recollected, that we give in most instances only the materials of history—the original documents to which historians must resort for their guidance-and therefore naked facts and unembellished statements are all that can be expected in the volume.*

It is remarked by Grahame, in his recent elaborate work upon the history of North America, that "Founders of ancient colonies have sometimes been deified by their successors. New-York is perhaps the only commonwealth whose founders have been covered with ridicule from the same quarter." Whatever may be thought of the wit and talent displayed in the well-known travesty here alluded to, the regret has often been expressed that a son of New

• Lambrechtsen's work would be an exception to this remark in point of style, had it been translated with the elegance of the original. See a fine article upon it, in the ninth volume of the North American Review, (June, 1819,) from the pen of Mr. Verplanck.

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