To Englishmen, the English claim to the territory at “Hudson’s River” was valid, by virtue of the discovery of the Cabots, under the law of nations as then recognized, not withstanding Hudson’s more particular explorations of those parts in 1609, in the service of Holland, especially as no colony or permanent occupancy of the region by the Dutch had been made.

Professor John Fiske shows that “it was not until the Protestant England of Elizabeth had come to a life-and-death grapple with Spain, and not until the discovery of America had advanced much nearer completion, so that its value began to be more correctly understood, that political and commercial motives combined in determining England to attack Spain through America, and to deprive her of supremacy in the colonial and maritime world.  Then the voyages of the Cabots assumed an importance entirely new, and could be quoted as the basis of a prior claim on the part of the English Crown, to lands which it [through the Cabots] had discovered.”

Having in mind the terrible history of slaughter and reprisal between the Spanish and French (Huguenot) settlers in Florida in 1565-67,

[Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i. p. 68; Fiske, Discovery of America, vol. ii. p. 511 et seq.  With the terrible experience of the Florida plantations in memory, the far-sighted leaders of the Leyden church proposed to plant under the shelter of an arm strong enough to protect them, and we find the Directors of the New Netherland Company stating that the Leyden party (the Pilgrims) can be induced to settle under Dutch auspices, “provided, they would be guarded and preserved from all violence on the part of other potentates, by the authority, and under the protection of your Princely Excellency and the High and Mighty States General.”  Petition of the Directors of the New Netherland Company to the Prince of Orange.]

the Pilgrims recognized the need of a strong power behind them, under whose aegis they might safely plant, and by virtue of whose might and right they could hope to keep their lives and possessions.  The King of England had, in 1606, granted charters to the two Virginia Companies, covering all the territory in dispute, and, there could be no doubt, would protect these grants and British proprietorship therein, against all comers.  Indeed, the King (James I.) by letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, his ambassador at the Hague, under date of December 15, 1621, expressly claimed his rights in the New Netherland territory and instructed him to impress upon the government of the States General his Majesty’s claim,—­“who, ‘jure prime occupation’ hath good and sufficient title to these parts.”  There can be no question that the overtures of Sandys, Weston, and others to make interest for them with one of these English Companies, agreed as well with both the preferences and convictions of the Leyden Pilgrims, as they did with the hopes and designs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges.