on the North or Hudson River among the most conspicuous of the latter being Van Rensselaer, whose tract embraced nearly all of the present counties of Albany and Rensselaer.

But these lords of the soil, grasping as they gained, and, fired with visions of coming wealth and power, soon began to quarrel among themselves, and as soon, felt impelled, in order to avoid exposure of questionable transactions, to make an equal division of their vast acquisitions to quiet the disaffected partners concerned. Then as the colonization and actual occupancy and cultivation of the land were necessary to complete good titles to the great estates Blommaert prepared an expedition provided with cattle, farming implements and other requisites to that end, to be sent to the Delaware for due settlement, over which he appointed as commander David Pietersen De Vries of Hoorn, a bold and skilful navigator and master of artillery of the United Provinces. This great seaman and explorer who had just returned from a three years cruise in the East Indies was at first offered but a secondary position among the titled operators, but declining any part under the highest assignment, his equality was recognized, and he was made full patroon on the 16th of October, 1630. The expedition sailed from the Texel in the ensuing December; it comprised the ship Walvis or Whale of 18 guns, and a yacht which, in addition to immigrants and farming supplies, carried implements for capturing whales, which were thought to be plentiful about the region of Delaware Bay.

Such was the origin and character of a voyage of historic fame known as the "De Vries" expedition. Yet the best sources of information favor the belief that De Vries himself did not sail with this first expedition, but that it was

yet energetic, members who did not forget the original purpose of the company, but honestly believed in the profit and prosperity to result from its legitimate pursuit of colonization and commercial projects. Among these men of substance were John De Laet, the historian; Killiaen Van Rensselaer, Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert. These men, with others of prudent and prophetic views, secured from the so-called assembly or "College of Nineteen" a charter of Exemptions and Privileges," which was confirmed by the States General on the 7th of June, 1629, under which enormous tracts of land and extraordinary powers, privileges and franchises were accorded to all such as should plant colonies or settlements in New Netherlands. This was the original basis of that patroon system of vast land tenure that specially characterized the early settlement of New York State. It was provided that on certain conditions members could send, on the company's ships, three or four persons as agents to select lands, and that after first satisfying the Indian's right to the same and defining the desired boundaries such members should become the feudal lords or patroons over tracts of fixed size, on condition that on each of them a colony of not less than 50 adults should be planted within four years. These tracts for colonial settlement might be 64 miles in length or half that extent if on two sides of a navigable river, and they were acquired in absolute fee simple by the patroons who were sole magistrates, and, within their own bounds "had chief command and dower jurisdiction," with the exclusive privilege of fishing, fowling and milling, and of founding cities and appointing officers. They prohibited all manufacturing, retained complete monopoly of the fur trade, and in all other

commanded by Peter Heyes, and reached South or Goodyn or Delaware Bay in April, 1631. Sailing up the western shore the two vessels passed the sandy point, now known as Cape Henlopen, and entered what was recorded as "a fine navigable stream filled with islands, abounding in good oysters" and flowing through a fertile region. They were met by the land odors and saw the bursting vegetation of a smiling April; and, wearied with the ship odors and the confinement and monotony of a four months' sea voyage, the immigrants gladly yielded to the allurements of the fragrant new home in its fresh spring apparel. There they landed with their supplies and their appliances for farming, for whale-fishing and for a permanent fixed settlement in a virginal and new land of promise. The settlers were about thirty in number, all males, and nearby, in good faith and high hopes they began that first Delaware colony which was destined to so brief an existence and so sad a fate.

The stream they had ascended, now known as Lewes creek, was then named Hoornkill in honor of De Vries, whose Holland residence was in Hoorn, while the landing place of this first Delaware colony to which the name was also applied, was nearly identical with the site of the existing Lewes; and here thus began the eventful history of the little Delaware town. Moreover the whole settlement was also called Zwaanendael or "Valley of Swans," from the number of those beautiful birds there found, and the land it comprised was, as a precautionary or confirmative measure again purchased for the patroons on the 5th of May, 1631, by the captain and commissary of the expedition from ten Indian chiefs belonging probably to the Nanticoke or Tide Water Indians, a tribe of the great Leni-Lenape or