CHAPTER I

THE PERIOD OF DISCOVERY

1524-1609

THE DUTCH PERIOD

1609-1664

THE explorer who was so closely associated with the discovery of
the Hudson River that his name began to be applied to it almost
immediately after his death, was not in reality the first European
to discover and describe the confines of the bays and harbour of New
York.[i] It is now an established fact that another had entered these
waters eighty-five years before Henry Hudson's failure to find a north¬
east passage to the riches of the Orient had turned him towards the west
and brought his ship along our shores. [2] In 1524, Giovanni da Ver-
razzano, an Italian explorer sailing in the interest of the King of France,
coasted along the eastern shore of North America from North Carolina
to Newfoundland  and   on  the way "found a  very agreeable situation
 

, in the midst of
, which was deep
 

located within two small prominent hills [the Narrows

which flowed to the sea a very great river [the Hudson

within the mouth."     His ship, the "Dauphine," a caravel of a hundred

tons, was "anchored off the coast in good shelter."     Not risking to enter

[i] For further details regarding early explorations in the neighbourhood of Manhattan Island, see Appendix, I,
Essay on Cartography.                                         [2] See Cartography and Vol. Ill, Chronology.