[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] here referred to by Stuyvesant was one granted by Charles II. on the 23d of April, 1662, to the Colony of Connecticut, wherein the westward bounds of Connecticut were stated to be " the South Sea" — that is, the Pacific Ocean. Tin southern bounds wore likewise fixed at " the Sea " — meaning not the Sound, but the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island. 131 HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY March 23, 1C61 (n. s.J, Charles II. by royal patent vested in his brother, the Duke of York (afterward James II.), the proprietorship of all of New Netherland. The sole semblance of justification of this act was the venerable claim of England to the North American mainland, based upon the discovery of the Cabots in the reign of Henry VII., nearly a hundred and seventy years before. At the time of the gift to the Duke of York, no state of war existed be-tween England and the Netherlands. Neither was there the plau-sible excuse of emergency on the ground of any threatening be-havior of the Dutch in America, or even of dangerous differences between the provinces of New Netherland and Connecticut; for, as wTe have seen, the Dutch had pursued an undeviating course of for-bearance and submission, and had but recently yielded all for which their English neighbors contended. It was a deed of spoliation pure and simple, and as such has been characterized in varying terms of denunciation by all impartial historians.