es 



The West India Company and the Walloo?is. 



proof than the mere absence of marginal dates. The permission to 

 emigrate hither was granted to Jesse DeForest and his band on the 

 27th of August, 1622, as appears by the copy of the acts of the Coun- 

 cillors at Leyden; and it hardly appears probable, in view of their de- 

 sire to come to this country, that they would delay a year and a half 

 after they had received permission to emigrate. And, besides, Ger- 

 ardus DeForest, who was of the same occupation as his brother Jesse, 

 presented a petition to the burgomaster of Leyden praying that as his 

 brother Jesse had lately left for the West Indies, he might be allowed to 

 take his place in the practice of his trade. This petition was granted 

 on the 24th of January, 1624, which shows conclusively that Jesse 

 must have left Leyden before that time, and that the date of the sail- 

 ing must have been March, 1623. 



I have thus endeavored to trace the first settlement at Albany, the 

 causes that led to it and by what company the emigrants were sent 

 out. And it is certainly a striking fact, that the English emigration 

 of the Pilgrim fathers would have been planted here, had the applica- 

 tion of the Dutch skippers prevailed; but the Dutch government de- 

 clining to send them because of the steps that were about to be taken 

 for the formation of the West India Company, the Pilgrim fathers re- 

 newed the application to the Virginia Company that had been suffered 

 to drop, and came to Massachusetts under English auspices. On the 

 other hand the Walloons seeing the success of the Pilgrim fathers in 

 their negotiations with the Virginia Company, applied to be sent out 

 under the same protection. This application was denied, and they 

 then turned to the West India Company, who sent them as a col- 

 ony to the Dutch possessions in New York. Neither emigration came 

 here in the way at first proposed, and each of them was accepted by 

 the company that refused the other; and so it happened that New 

 York became the home of the French Huguenot and the Walloon 

 Protestant, instead of sheltering the English Puritan. 



