Vlissingen

... has been an important Dutch harbour for centuries, strategically located between the Scheldt river and the North Sea. It was granted city rights in 1315, and in the 17th century it was a main harbour for ships of the Dutch East India Company. It was the birthplace of Michiel Adriaenszoon de Ruyter – the most famous admiral in Dutch history, and one of the most skilled. De Ruyter is most famous for his role in the Anglo–Dutch Wars of the 17th century, when he scored several major victories against the English and French fleets. Probably the best known of these is the Raid on the Medway, of 1667.

In the modern-day Netherlands, Vlissingen is best known for the shipyards on the Scheldt, where most of the ships of the Royal Dutch Navy are built.

The place name 'Flushing' is best known to English speakers, however, in reference to a district of Queens, New York, where the US Open tennis championships have been held since 1978. That's unless you happen to live in Cornwall, in which case you may associate it more closely with a seaside village near the base of the Lizard peninsula.

Both of these places were named after the Dutch port. But what interests me (because I'm a bit of an anorak about these things) is: which of these three places was the first to be referred to in English as Flushing?

Wikipedia notes, in reference to the original Dutch port, that "Vlissingen was historically called 'Flushing' in English. In the 17th century Vlissingen was important enough to be a town that English speakers referred to and that had acquired its own English name. For example, Samuel Pepys referred to the town as 'Flushing' in his diaries. In 1673 Sir William Temple referred to Vlissingen as 'Flushing' once and 'Flussingue' twice in his book about the Netherlands. Some English writers in the Netherlands also used the Dutch name."

It goes on: "A Dutch colonial village, founded in 1645 and now part of Queens, New York City, was given the name Vlissingen after the Dutch original. The English settlers who also came to live in the village shortened the name to Vlissing by 1657, and this became anglicised to Flushing."

In somewhat broken English, Wikipedia continues: "The Anglicisation of 'Vlissingen' into 'Flushing' did not occur after the conquest of New Netherland, but in England well before then. This village was the site of the Flushing Remonstrance."

The Flushing Remonstrance happened in 1657, when some thirty residents of the New York settlement petitioned Peter Stuyvesant (Director–General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland) to request an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. The outcome was that the Dutch West India Company agreed to support the Quakers, and advised Stuyvesant by letter (in 1663) that he was to end religious persecution in the colony. One year later, New Netherland fell to British control.

The Flushing Remonstrance is considered a precursor to the US Constitution's provision for freedom of religion, established in the Bill of Rights.

The fact that it's known as the Flushing Remonstrance, rather than the Vlissingen (or Vlissing) Remonstrance, suggests (but admittedly doesn't prove) that the New York settlement may have been known as Flushing (to English speakers) as early as 1657. It doesn't prove it because it may have been originally known as the Vlissingen (or Vlissing) Remonstrance, and this may have become anglicised later.

Even so, the Flushing Remonstrance unquestionably predates the two examples that Wikipedia gives for the use of 'Flushing' in respect of the Dutch port, and the fall of New Netherland to British control predates at least one of them (Samuel Pepys was writing his diary throughout the 1660s). It seems to me more likely that the anglicised name was used for the American settlement first, and then by association for the Dutch port.

Wikipedia also tells us that "The village of Flushing in Cornwall ... was given its name by Dutch engineers from Vlissingen in the Netherlands who built the three main quays in the village." This also happened in the 1660s; Wikipedia tells us that the Cornish village was founded in 1661. So maybe this was the first place to be called Flushing!