While these things were going on in England, a strange event took
place abroad. The Dutch had established a colony on the Hudson River.
It was on territory which the English claimed (S335), but which they
had never explored or settled. The Dutch had built a town at the
mouth of the Hudson, which they called New Amsterdam. They held the
place undisturbed for fifty years, and if "Possession is nine points
of the law," they seem to have acquired it. Furthermore, during the
period of Cromwell's Protectorate (S455), England had made a treaty
with Holland and had recognized the claims of the Dutch in the New
World.
Charles had found shelter and generous treatment in Holland when he
needed it most. But he now cooly repudiated the treaty, and, though
the two nations were at peace, he treacherously sent out a secret
expedition to capture the Dutch colony for his brother James, Duke of
York, to whom he had granted it.
One day a small English fleet suddenly appeared (1664) in the harbor
of the Dutch town, and demanded its immediate and unconditional
surrender. The governor was unprepared to make any defense, and the
place was given up. Thus, without so much as the firing of a gun, New
Amsterdam got the name of New York in honor of the man who had now
become its owner. The acquisition of this territory, which had
separated the northern English colonies from the southern, gave
England complete control of the Atlantic coast from Maine to northern
Florida.