Southern New England, 1638-45, image 9 of 19
Mouth of the Connecticut River
“Nor could the claim of the Dutch West India Company to the Fresh River – the Connecticut – by right of prior discovery and occupation, through so pertinaciously urged, seriously hinder the steady progress of the English along the shores of the Sound toward the valley of the Hudson. From the time of the first settlement at Hartford the advanced guard of the more energetic race had pushed on, in spite of the protest and threats, the rage – furious but harmless – of the Dutch. The quiet energy and determination of the English were stronger than the loudest and most indignant complaints; for success lay naturally with the party that acted rather than with the one that, for the most part, only talked. The two people were moved, moreover, by totally different motives.” 
“The Fresh River, and all the region it watered, the Dutch looked upon only as a back country, rich in beaver skins, to be made tributary to the great trading station at New Amsterdam. It best served their purposes while it remained a hunting-ground for the Indians, with here and there a half-military, half-trading post, to regulate the traffic in the peltries which the Indians gathered. When the Dutch wanted to colonize, if they went out of the valley of the Hudson, or beyond the immediate vicinity of their chief colony, it was to dispute with the Swedes the possession of the beautiful shores that extended on the South River from the Capes of the Delaware a hundred miles into the interior of the mouth of the Schuylkill. They had no such designs of settlement along the coast of New England, however much they coveted the possession of the country for the sake of its trade.”