To effect the ends in view, a charter was granted to James, Duke of York,—Charles’s brother,—for all the lands lying between the western side of Connecticut River and the east side of Delaware Bay, including Long Island, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and the islands in their vicinity. This charter was dated March 12, 1663/4, and the following month a fleet of four vessels, having on board a full complement of sailors and soldiers, was despatched to eject the Dutch and put the representatives of the Duke of York in possession.
The fleet arrived in August, and articles of capitulation were signed on the 19th (20th) of the same month. Colonel Richard Nicolls, who commanded the expedition, received the surrender of the Province the following day; and in October Sir Robert Carr secured the capitulation of the settlements on the Delaware. By the treaty of Breda, in 1667, the possession of the country was confirmed to the English.[710]
Although, as the pioneers of civilization, the Hollanders had developed, to a considerable extent, the resources of what is now New Jersey, yet the cultivation of the soil and the increase of population, during the half century that had elapsed since their first occupancy, were by no means commensurate with what might have been expected. Settlements had been made on tracts known as Weehawken, Hoboken, Ahasimus, Pavonia, Constable’s Hook, and Bergen, on the western banks of the Hudson River, opposite New Amsterdam, but of their population and other evidences of growth nothing definite is known. On the Delaware, Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, in 1623, under the auspices of the West India Company of Holland, and David Pieterson de Vries, in 1631, attempted to colonize South Jersey at Fort Nassau; but to the Swedes must be accorded the credit of making the first successful settlements, though few in number and insignificant in extent.[711] These, in August, 1655, were surrendered to the Dutch under Peter Stuyvesant, and they had experienced very little growth or modification when surrendered to Sir Robert Carr in 1664.
Before the Duke of York was actually in possession of the territory, he had executed deeds of lease and release to Lord John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, and Sir George Carteret, of Saltrum. The documents bore the dates of June 23 and 24, 1664, and granted all that portion of his American acquisition—
“lying and being to the westward of Long Island and Manhitoes Island, and bounded on the east part by the main sea and part by Hudson’s river, and hath upon the west Delaware bay or river, and extending southward to the main ocean as far as Cape May at the mouth of Delaware bay, and to the northward as far as the northernmost branch of the said bay or river of Delaware, which is forty-one degrees and forty minutes of latitude, and crosseth over thence in a straight line to Hudson’s river in forty-one degrees of latitude; which said tract of land is hereafter to be called by the name or names of New Cæsaria or New Jersey.”
The two courtiers, placed in these important and interesting relations to the people of New Jersey, were doubtless led to enter into them from being already interested in the Province of Carolina, and from their associations with the Duke of York.
