66 The West India Company and the Walloons. 



be employed; but it was suggested, however, that final action should 

 be postponed until the board of directors should be formed, if the 

 assembly thought proper that this promise should be made to them; 

 which being considered by the lords, gentlemen and cities, it is 

 unanimously resolved and concluded that the said promise shall be 

 given with the knowledge of the magistracy and to proceed with it 

 accordingly.* 



De Forest also presented a petition for leave to emigrate before the 

 States General of the United Netherlands. From the report made by 

 the Councillors of Holland to that august body, ic appears that he 

 had applied to the States General for their permission to several fami- 

 lies or individual colonists, professing the Reformed religion, to under- 

 take the voyage to th-3 West Indies for the advancement and promotion 

 of the West Indies Company. The report favors the granting of the 

 request on the condition that De Forest shall do this with the knowl- 

 edge and concurrence of the several cities in which he shall make the 

 enrollment; and that he shall be held to make return of the same to 

 the States of Holland, f 



This report was dated August 27, 1622, and early in March, 1623, 

 the ship New Netherland, " whereof Cornelis Jacobs, of Hoorn " (or 

 following the English nomenclature, Cornelis Jacobson Mey), was the 

 skipper, sailed from the Texel " having on board a company of thirty 

 families, mostly Walloons." The voyage occupied about two months, 

 and they arrived at the mouth of the Mauritius or Hudson river in 

 May, 1623 ; and then the little company of passengers separated. 

 Eight of them were landed at Manhattan to take possession of that 

 part of the country in the name of the West India Company. Two 

 families went toward the east to make a settlement near the Fresh, 

 or Connecticut river. Four couple who had been married at sea, were 

 sent toward the South or Delaware river, at a point about four miles 

 below the present city of Philadelphia. Eighteen families remained on 

 the ship, which now proceeded up the river and made a landing near 

 this city; where they built a fort which they called Fort Orange, around 

 which hastily constructed bark huts soon appeared. It would be 

 interesting to know the names of these eighteen families comprising 

 the first settlers of Albany; but on examining the names on the 

 ''round robin" to which I have before referred, there is but one 

 name connected with the early history of Albany; and that is the 

 young student of medicine, Johannes de la Montagne. After remain- 



*Baird's Hist. Huguenot EmTTvolTlT pp. 6 0 and 35 ; Doc. relative to Col. Htet^ 



f Baird's Hist. Huguenot Emigration, vol. I, p. 69. 



