On April 4th 1609, Henry Hudson, the English explorer in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, departed Amsterdam in command of the ship Halve Maen, or the Half Moon. On September 3 he reached the estuary of the river that initially was called the "Mauritius" and that was later named for him, the Hudson River. Although he was English, Hudson was under the employ of the Dutch, so the colony became a Dutch colony named "New Amsterdam". England captured the colony during the the Second Anglo-Dutch War and governed it as the Province of New York. The city of New York was recaptured by the Dutch in 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674) and renamed New Orange. It was returned to the English under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster, a year later. The founder of our great colony was a man named Peter Minuit. He joined the Dutch West India Company, about one hundred years ago, and was sent to the Dutch colony of New Netherland (Now New York) in 1625 to search for tradable goods other than the animal pelts which were then the major product coming from New Netherland. He returned in the same year, and in 1626 was appointed the new director of New Netherlands, taking over from Willem Verhulst.