Governor Minuit was himself accused of aiding the patroons to make money at the expense of the West India Company, and of taking his share of the profit; and finally, the Company ordered him to return to Holland. The ship in which he sailed was wrecked on the coast of England, and Minuit was detained and accused of unlawfully trading in the territory of the King of England. This was not the first time that the English had laid claim to the Dutch lands in America. Charles I. was king then, and he said that England owned New Netherland because an English king, more than a hundred years before Hudson's time, had sent John Cabot and his son Sebastian in search of new lands, and they had touched the American shore.
But the Dutch called attention to the fact that it had been held, time out of mind, that to own a country one must not only discover it, but must visit it continually, and even buy it from any persons who should be settled there. Even if the Cabots had discovered the land in America, the Dutch had occupied it ever since Hudson's time and had paid the Indians for it.
Matters were patched up for the time, and Minuit was permitted to return to Holland. But he was no longer Governor of New Netherland, for his place had been given to another man whose name was Walter Van Twiller.
