20 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

Company was licensed to trade in the territory
from year to year.

In 1621 this haphazard system was changed by
the granting of a charter which superseded all pri-
vate agreements and smaller enterprises by the
incorporation of "that great armed commercial
association/5 the Dutch West India Company.
By the terms of the charter the States-General
engaged to secure to the Company freedom of
traffic and navigation within prescribed limits,
which included not only the coast and countries
of Africa from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape
of Good Hope but also the coasts of America.
Within these vague and very extended bounds the
Company was empowered to make contracts and
alliances, to build forts, to establish government,
to advance the peopling of fruitful and unsettled
parts, and to "do all that the service of those

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countries and the profit and increase of trade shall
require."

For these services the States-General agreed to
grant a subsidy of a million guilders, or about half
a million dollars, "provided that we with half the
aforesaid million of guilders, shall receive and bear
profit and risk in the same manner as the other
members of this Company." In case of war, which