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. In the 17th century it was a main harbour for ships of the Dutch East India Company. It's mainly noted for the yards on the Scheldt, where most of the ships of the Royal Dutch Navy are built.

Wikipedia notes 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.

"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. What I'm trying to get at, however, is which Vlissingen first became known as Flushing: the one in the Netherlands, or the one in America?

Wikipedia doesn't even seem to have asked this question. But the Flushing Remonstrance predates the two examples it quotes 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 to the Dutch port.

Not that it really matters; call me an anorak, but I'm just curious about this sort of thing.

Wikipedia also tells us that "The village of Flushing in Cornwall was also named after Vlissingen. Originally named Nankersey, the village 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!