CHAPTER Y

PETEK  MINUIT AND WALTEK VAN  TWILLEK

1626->1637
 

HE commercial metropolis of the
Western Hemisphere had its origin in
the pursuit of commerce. In Holland, a
country which had achieved its independence and estab¬
lished a government of the people, there were no political exiles to
seek freedom in foreign lands. Since the Dutch Republic had been
founded as a protest against religious persecution, and consistently
with that protest had become the asylum for the persecuted for con¬
science' sake in other lands, whether Catholics, Jews, or Protestants,
there was no occasion to leave the United Provinces in order to enjoy
liberty of worship on the distant shores of the New World. " Adven¬
ture brought men to Virginia," writes an American author, " politics
and religion to New England, philanthropy to G-eorgia; but New-York