“The king of England,” it was said,

“is only desirous of reducing his colonies to uniformity in Church and State.  With this view he has dispatched some commissioners with two or three frigates, to New England, to introduce Episcopacy in that quarter.”

It was supposed in Holland, that this intolerant policy would strengthen the Dutch interests in America; that the religious freedom, which the States-General insisted upon, would invite to New Netherland from all the countries of Europe, those who were not willing to conform to the doctrines and ritual of the Church of England.

Governor Stuyvesant, upon receiving these dispatches from the home government, felt relieved of all anxiety.  He had no doubt that the previous rumor which had reached him was false.  Neither he nor his council anticipated any difficulty.  The whole community indulged in the sense of security.  The work on the fortifications was stopped; the vessels sailed to Curacoa, and the governor went up the river to fort Orange.  A desolating war had broken out between the Indian tribes there, which raged with such ferocity that the colonists were full of alarm for their own lives and property.

But the English fleet was rapidly approaching.  It consisted of four frigates, containing in all an armament of ninety-four guns.  This was a force to which defenceless New Amsterdam could present no resistance.

The fleet put into Boston the latter part of July, and the commissioners applied to both Massachusetts and Connecticut for aid in their military expedition against the Dutch.  But the Puritans of Massachusetts found innumerable obstacles in the way of rendering any assistance.  They feared that the king of England, having reduced the Dutch, would be induced to extend his arbitrary sway, both civil and religious, over those colonists who were exiles from their native land, simply that they might enjoy freedom to worship God.

Connecticut, however, hoped that the conquest of New Netherland might annex the magnificent domain to their own region.  Governor Winthrop, of Hartford, manifested so much alacrity in the cause, that he was invited to meet the British squadron, at the west end of Long Island, to which point it would sail with the first fair wind.

Colonel Richard Nicholls was in command of the expedition.  Three commissioners were associated with him.  They had received instructions to visit the several New England colonies, and to require them, “to join and assist vigorously in reducing the Dutch to subjection.”  The Duke of York, soon after the departure of the squadron, conveyed to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret all the territory between the Hudson and Delaware rivers, from Cape May north to forty-one degrees and forty minutes of latitude, “hereafter to be called Nova Caesarea or New Jersey.”