Their posts on the African coast were captured and New Amsterdam (now New York) taken.
A small expedition sent by Cromwell in February 1654 to capture New Amsterdam (New York) from the Dutch was abandoned on the conclusion of peace, and the fleet turned to attack the French colonies; Major Robert Sedgwick taking with a handful of men the fort of St John's, Port Royal or Annapolis, and the French fort on the river Penobscot, the whole territory from this river to the mouth of the St Lawrence remaining British territory till its cession in 1667.
The first school was established by the Dutch at New Amsterdam (now New York City) as early as 1633, and at the close of the Dutch period there was a free elementary school in nearly every settlement.
In 1653, during the war between England and Holland, the Dutch, fearing an English attack, built a wall, from which the present Wall Street was named, across Manhattan Island at what was then the northern limits of New Amsterdam.
Nicolls won over the burgomaster of New Amsterdam and other prominent citizens by the favourable terms which he offered, and Stuyvesant was forced, without fighting, into a formal surrender on the 8th of September.
