In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant was sent over as governor.  He had the sense to see that the real safety of the Dutch consisted not in bluster, but in settling a line between the possessions of the two nations as soon as possible.  The charter of the West India Company called for the territory between forty and forty-five degrees north latitude, but to assert the full extent of the patent would have been to claim the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.  Accordingly, Stuyvesant, soon after his arrival, addressed a letter to Governor Winthrop, asserting the Dutch claim to all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware and proposing a conference.  But it is evident that in claiming the Connecticut he was actuated more by a hope of deterring the further aggressions of English settlers than otherwise.  The federal commissioners returned a polite reply, but showed no anxiety to come to an accommodation.  Soon after a fresh quarrel broke out with New Haven, and in March, 1648, Stuyvesant wrote to the governor of Massachusetts offering to submit to him and the governor of Plymouth the matter in dispute.  He then wrote home for instructions, and as diplomatic relations between England and Holland were suspended, the West India Company bade him make such terms as he could with his English neighbors.[23]

Accordingly, in September, 1650, Stuyvesant visited Hartford while the federal commissioners were in session there.  The discussions were carried on in writing, and Stuyvesant dated his letter at “New Netherland.”  The federal commissioners declined to receive this letter, and Stuyvesant changed the address to “Connecticut.”  This proving satisfactory to the commissioners, Stuyvesant set out his territorial claim and the imputed wrongs suffered by the Dutch from the English, and the federal commissioners rejoined in a similar manner.  Then Stuyvesant proposed to refer the question in dispute to four arbitrators, all Englishmen, two to be appointed by himself and two by the federal commissioners.

The offer was accepted, and after a full hearing by these arbitrators, Thomas Willet, George Baxter, Simon Bradstreet, and Thomas Prince, declined to decide upon the wrongs complained of by either party and rendered an award upon the territorial question only.  They decided that the Dutch should retain their fort on the Connecticut, and that the boundary should begin at a point on the west side of Greenwich Bay, about four miles from Stamford, and run due north twenty miles.  From that point it should be extended as the Dutch and New Haven might agree, provided that the line should not come nearer the Hudson River than ten miles.  The English obtained most of Long Island besides, for in that quarter the line was declared to be a meridian drawn through the westernmost part of Oyster Bay.[24] If these terms subjected Stuyvesant to severe criticism at New Amsterdam, it was really a stroke of statesmanship to obtain, even at a sacrifice, what was for the first time an international barrier to English intrusion.