PREFACE
 

ANY admirable writers have preceded us in preparing his¬
tories of the famous city of which the Hollanders, the
Huguenots of France, and the English were the chief
founders. Not to speak of the living, we may mention
Brodhead and Miss Booth; the literary partners, Irving and Paul¬
ding ; Dunlap and Moulton; William Smith and Dr. O'Callahan; each
of whom contributed much valuable information concerning different
centuries of New-York history. But there appeared still to be, in the
judgment of many judicious men, a place for a single complete and
exhaustive work on the subject. Two decades have passed since the
poet Bryant called the writer's attention to the urgent demand for
such a book, and in December, 1888, the venerable Bancroft, with kind
partiality, said: " You have rendered a valuable service to your coun¬
try by the completion of the ' Cyclopaedia of American Biography.'
Why not perform a similar service by preparing an equally trust¬
worthy history of the city of New-York of the same character as the
one that has recently appeared concerning Boston ? "

What had previously been a project became, by the advice of the
greatest of American historians, a fixed purpose. During the writer's
sojourn in Europe, in the following year, much valuable material was
fortunately discovered in England and Holland for the furtherance of
the four volumes of which the first is now presented to the public.
The complete work will cover nearly three centuries, including the
period from the arrival in our beautiful bay of the Half-Moon, soon
after the close of "the spacious days of great Elizabeth," to that of the
four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the New World—two
pregnant events in which Columbus and Henry Hudson were the
chief actors. They will be appropriately commemorated in September,
1892, by the dedication of a lofty monument to be erected on the
highest point of the Atlantic Highlands, near which the Enghsh