THE FOUNDERS OF NEW AMSTERDAM 213 



son ; but tlie Dutch not being ready to move, found a 

 home at Plymouth instead ; while the French Protestants, 

 who offered to establish a colony in Virginia, since the 

 Virginia Company was not wise enough to accept the 

 offer, went to the Hudson instead of the James, and 

 helped found a Dutch commonwealth. 



After a specially favoured voyage, early in May, four- 

 teen yeai's after Henry Hudson had discovered the noble 

 river which perpetuates his name, the ship New Nether- ship New 

 land sailed into the ''most beautiful bay" that now shel- Teaf ""'' 

 ters the commerce of the world. At that very moment a 

 French ship lay in the harbour, on errand to take pos- 

 session of the country in the name of France, on the 

 ground of Verrazzano's discovery a century before ; and 

 thus French Roman Catholic and French Protestant met 

 again. Fortimately for the newcomers, a Dutch ''vessel 

 of several guns" chanced to lie a little further up the 

 river ; and between the remonstrances of the colonists and 

 a show of force from the Mackerel, the French ship sailed 

 away, leaving the Dutch and Walloons free to land and 

 make their settlement. They found a few huts near the 

 southern end of the island, where a trading-post had been 

 maintained by Amsterdam merchants. With this excep- 

 tion the country was a wilderness. 



The inhabitants of the little trading-post were not all 

 Dutch, however, for in 1614 a child was born of Huo-ue- 16.4 

 not parents. This baby, named Jean Vigne, disputes the First chiid 

 right with Virginia Dare of being remembered as the '"■'""'' 

 first white child to see the light on the continent of North 

 America. The second birth to take place within the 

 limits of the Dutch province was that of Sarah Rapalie, 

 likewise of Huguenot blood, who was born at Orange! ^^"^ ^^^^"^ 

 The names of her parents, indeed, George Rapalie and 

 Cataliua Trico, were the only ones definitely known hith- 

 erto of the French colonists brought over in the New 

 Netherland. They went, with seventeen other families, 

 up the North River, landed and built a fort called Orange, 



