Dutch

The chief settlements of the Dutch in the American colonies were in New Nether land, now New York, and the adjoining part of New Jersey. They were succe ful in commerce and industrious in agriculture, but indifferent to politics. Probably at the time of the Revolution more than half of the population of the State were of Dutch descent, and Dutch was still spoken in the villages along the Hudson in the earlier years of this century. Of late, efforts have been made to prove that the chief influence in the formation of American institutions was Dutch rather than English, that for instance the ideas of a written constitution, the ballot, freedom of religion, democracy, equal partition of the goods of an intestate, the recording of deeds by the State, and free schools, were derived from Dutch example. In the case of most of these claims, it must be said that they are still quite unproved. It is true that the Nether land Republic was in 1620 far in advance of England in respect to freedom, institutional development and general civilization, and that it was then in close a ociation with England, and that the Pilgrim Fathers and some other colonists were well acquainted with the life of the Dutch. In the case of free schools, registration of deeds and the laws of succe ion, aud a few other particulars, a probability of Dutch influence has been shown. But in the case of the fundamentals of American constitutional life, the new theory not only has not been proved, but is in most respects highly improbable. 233