Hudson's Voyages and Discoveries: Plymouth Company and Pilgrims

These Hollanders were so remote from the Jamestown settlement, and all New England being a wilderness untrodden by any European resident, that they were not disturbed. The Plymouth Company complained that they were intruders on their domain; and King James growled; and a word of warning was given by Captain Dermer of an English ship which, one fine morning in June, 1619, while on its way to Virginia, sailed through Long Island Sound, and lost an anchor in its encounter with the eddies of Hell Gate. That commander thought he was the first discoverer of that "most dangerous cataract" and the flowery islands between which he sailed, but when he was fairly out upon the Bay of New York, he saw the smoke of cottages on Manhattan, and was saluted by Hollanders. He did not stop then to talk to the intruders, but on his return he felt it to be his duty to go in and warn the traffickers to leave his majesty's domain as quickly as possible. "We found no Englishmen here, and hope we have not offended," replied the good-natured Dutchmen, and went on smoking their pipes, planting their gardens, and catching beavers and otters, as if they had never heard the voice of Captain Dermer, the "loving subject" of the king of England. The sounds of royal bluster that came occasionally from Great Britain did not deter the States-General from helping their "loyal subjects" in New Netherland, and they proceeded to charter the "Dutch West India Company," making it a great commercial monopoly by giving it almost regal powers to colonize, govern, and defend, not only that little domain on the Hudson, but the whole unoccupied coasts of America from Newfoundland to Cape Horn, and the western coasts of Africa from the Cape of Good Hope far northward.

That charter contained all the guarantees of freedom in social, political, and religious life necessary to the founding of a free state. Republicanism was recognized as the true system of government, and home, in its broadest and purest sense, as the prime element of political strength. No stranger was to be questioned concerning his nativity or his creed as matters which concerned the state. "Do you wish to build, to plant, and to become a citizen?" was the sum of their catechism when a new comer appeared. If the answer should be satisfactory, he was to be welcomed. That charter was granted on the 3d of June, 1621, at the time when the stricken Pilgrims at Plymouth, on the coast of Massachusetts, were cultivating their first fruitgardens and cornfields.

The government of the West India Company was vested in five separate chambers of managers, composed of members in different parts of Holland. General executive powers were entrusted to a board of nineteen delegates, of whom about one-half were to reside in Amsterdam, and one was to represent the States-General. The government agreed to furnish the Company, in case of war, with sixteen armed ships, of three hundred tons burden each, to assist in maintaining their rights,--these, with an equal number of the Company's ships-of-war to be under the command of an admiral appointed by the States-General. Whilst the Company might make conquests of territories and treaties with native chiefs at their own risk, they were required to submit the instructions to their governors to the approval of the home government; and their officers were all required to take the oath of allegiance to the States-General.

It was two years after obtaining this charter before the Company was organized. It was an armed commercial monopoly, the chief object of which was traffic and the humbling of Spain and Portugal, and not colonization. Meanwhile, the Plymouth Company had obtained the coveted new charter already mentioned. By it their king conferred upon them almost regal powers. Without the consent of the Plymouth Company, no ships might enter any harbor on the American coast between Newfoundland and the latitude of Philadelphia; not a fish might be caught within three miles of the American coast; not a skin trafficked for in the forests, nor an emigrant live upon the soil. That extraordinary charter had been signed by the king a week before the arrival of the May-Flower off Cape Cod, with the Pilgrims; and that little colony who had braved the terrors of the Atlantic for the sake of freedom, were subjected, prospectively, to an almost irresponsible despotism. The House of Commons, alarmed because of this delegation of despotic power to a grasping company of traders, presented the patent as the first of "the public grievances of the kingdom." The French ambassador in London protested against it because Canada was included within the limits of the Plymouth Company's charter; and a little later the captain of a French vessel, anchored in the mouth of the Hudson River, attempted to set up the arms of France there, and take possession of the country in the name of his king. The Dutch, too, were concerned in the matter, for if the powers granted to the Plymouth Company might be exercised without hindrance, New Netherland would be useless to them.