CHAPTER   XII.

THE   SURRENDER  OF  THE   CITY  TO   THE   ENGLISH  IN   1664, AND   THE   SUBSE¬
QUENT  EVENTS, UNTIL   ITS   RECAPTURE   IN   1673.

The English had, from the earliest settlement on the
Hudson river, asserted that the occupation of the country
by the Dutch was a usurpation, the country being properly
an appendage of Virginia; but the claim was not main¬
tained to extremity, and the Dutch and English colonies
on this coast had grown up together—their respective
limits, though not precisely defined, being between them¬
selves generally recognized.

But as time passed on, it became yearly more apparent
to the inhabitants of New England that the continued
occupation of the territory then held by the Dutch, must
prove more and more detrimental to the interests of their
own section. The importance of the question was pressed
by them, at every opportunity, upon the administration
of the government in England; but the unsettled condition
of that country, in and about the times of the civil war,
had occupied the attention of the home government, to
the exclusion of minor questions of colonial policy.

No sooner, however, had King Charles II. become fairly
seated on his throne, than this subject received the atten¬
tion of his government, and the disputed territory, occu¬
pied by the Dutch  (together  with  other  tracts  on  the