His great ability and practical
good sense had arrested the attention and admiration of not only his own
employees, but of the citizens of Harrisville, who demanded that he
should be chosen mayor of the city.
CHAPTER XXVI
UNEXPECTED MEETINGS
Christine De Ruyter had long contemplated a visit to the new world.
She was familiar with the history of the Dutch West India Company, a
political movement organized under cover of finding a passage to Cathay,
to destroy the results of Spanish conquest in America.
No doubt, love of discovery and of trade also stimulated the Dutch in
making explorations. In the vessel "Half Moon" they sailed up the Hudson,
and after building several forts, they finally established themselves in
New Netherlands. Peter Minuit for a trifle bought from the Indians the
whole of Manhattan Island. In locating on Manhattan Island, the Dutch
secretly believed that they had secured the oyster while the English
settlements further north and south were the two shells only. The
development of almost three centuries and the supremacy of New York
to-day, as the new world metropolis, verifies the sound sense of the
Dutch.
Christine was alive to the important part which her countrymen had early
played across the Atlantic.
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