George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 2, 17th edition.

[2] island of Manhattan; but Adriaen Block, building a

Chap. XV.} 1614.

yacht of sixteen tons burden, which he named the ‘Unrest,’ plied forth to explore the vicinity. First of European navigators he steered through Hell Gate, passed the archipelago near Norwalk, and discovered the river of Red Hills, which we call the Housatonic. From the bay of Newhaven he turned to the east, and ascended the beautiful river which he named the Freshwater, but which, to this hour, keeps its Indian name of Connecticut. Near the site of Wethersfield he came upon one Indian tribe; just above Hartford, upon another; and he heard tales of the Horicans, who dwelt in the west, and moved over lakes in bark canoes. The Pequods he found on the banks of their river. At Montauk Point, then occupied by a savage nation, he reached the ocean, proving the land east of the Sound to be an island. Thus far he was a discoverer. The island which bears his name, Verazzano, nearly a century before, had named Claudia. After exploring both channels of the island, which owes to him the name of Roode Eiland, now Rhode Island, the mariner from Holland imposed the names of places in his native land on groups in the Atlantic, which, years before, Gosnold and other English navigators had visited. The Unrest sailed beyond Cape Cod, and while John Smith was making maps of the bays and coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, Adriaen Block traced the shore as far at least as Nahant. Then leaving the American-built yacht at Cape Cod, to be used by Cornelis Hendricksen in the fur-trade, Block sailed in Christiaensen's ship for Holland.

The States General, in an Assembly where Olden