XV. danger that the New England men would stretch their CHAP. settlements to the North River, intercept the navigation from Fort Orange, and monopolize the fur-trade.' The commercial corporation would not risk a war; the expense would impair its dividends. War," they declared, "cannot in any event be for our advantage ; the New England people are too powerful for us.” No issue was left but by negotiation; Stuyvesant himself repaired as ambassador to Hartford, and was glad 1650 Sept. to conclude a provisional treaty, which allowed New 11. Netherlands to extend on Long Island as far as Oyster Bay, on the main to the neighborhood of Greenwich. This intercolonial treaty was acceptable to the West India Company, but was never ratified in England; its conditional approbation by the States General is the only Dutch state-paper in which the government of the republic recognized the boundaries of the province on the Hudson. The West India Company could never obtain a national guaranty for the integrity of their possessions. to The war between the rival republics in Europe did 1651 not extend to America; we have seen the prudence of 1654. Massachusetts restrain the colonies; in England, Roger Williams delayed an armament against New Netherlands. It is true, that the West India Company, dreading an attack from New England, had instructed 1652. their governor "to engage the Indians in his cause."4 15. But the friendship of the Narragansetts for the Puritans could not be shaken. "I am poor," said Mixam, one 1 Albany Records, vii. 3; iv. 32. 2 Treaty, in Trumbull, i. 192. Hutchinson, i. 447. Hazard, ii. 218. Compare Albany Records, iv. 14, 15, 18, 28, 32, 35, &c. &c. 73, 207. 3 Williams, in Knowles, 263. 4 Albany Records, iv. 84. But compare Albany Records, iv. 120; Aug. CHAP. of their sachems, "but no presents of goods, or of guns, XV. or of powder and shot, shall draw me into a conspiracy against my friends the English." The naval successes 1653. of the Dutch inspired milder counsels; and the news of peace in Europe soon quieted every apprehension. The provisionary compact left Connecticut in possession of a moiety of Long Island; the whole had often, but ineffectually, been claimed by Lord Stirling. 1634. The favor of Strafford had also obtained for Sir Edward June 21. Ployden a gift of New Albion, or Long Island with the 1641 country on the Delaware. The lord palatine at1648. tempted a settlement; but the want of a pilot compelled to him to enter the Chesapeake; and his people were absorbed in the happy province of Virginia. He was never able to dispossess the Swedes.1 With the Swedes, therefore, powerful competitors for the tobacco of Virginia and the beaver of the Schuylkill, the Dutch were to contend for the banks of the Delaware. In the vicinity of the river, the Swedish company was more powerful than its rival; but the whole province of New Netherlands was tenfold more populous than New Sweden. From motives 1651. of commercial security, the Dutch built Fort Casimi, on the site of Newcastle, within five miles of Christiana, near the mouth of the Brandywine. To the Swedes this seemed an encroachment; jealousies en1654. sued; and at last, aided by stratagem and immediate superiority in numbers, Rising, the Swedish governor, overpowered the garrison. The aggression was fatal to the only colony which Sweden had planted. The 1655. metropolis was exhausted by a long succession of wars; 1654, 1 B. Plantagenet's Description of New Albion, 1648, in the library of the Library Company, Philadel phia. Hazard, i. 160, &c. Winthrop, ii. 325. XV. Nov. 16. the statesmen and soldiers whom Gustavus had edu- CHAP. cated, had passed from the public service; Oxenstiern, after adorning retirement by the sublime pursuits of philosophy, was no more; a youthful and licentious queen, greedy of literary distinction, and without сараcity for government, had impaired the strength of the kingdom by nursing contending factions, and then capriciously abdicating the throne. Sweden had ceased to awaken fear or inspire respect; and the Dutch company fearlessly commanded Stuyvesant to "revenge 1654. their wrong, to drive the Swedes from the river, or compel their submission." The order was renewed ; and in September, 1655, the Dutch governor, collecting 1655 a force of more than six hundred men, sailed into the Delaware with the purpose of conquest. Resistance had been unavailing. One fort after another surrendered: to Rising honorable terms were conceded; the colonists Sept were promised the quiet possession of their estates; and, in defiance of protests and the turbulence of the Scandinavians, the jurisdiction of the Dutch was established. Such was the end of NEW SWEDEN,' the colony that connects our country with Gustavus Adolphus and the nations that dwell on the Gulf of Bothnia. It maintained its distinct existence for a little more than seventeen years, and succeeded in establishing permanent plantations on the Delaware. The descendants of the colonists, in the course of generations, widely scattered and blended with emigrants of other lineage, constitute probably more than one part in two hundred of the present population of our country. At 1 Albany Records, xiii. 349–358, 367, 2, 7; iv. 157, 166, 186, 204, &c. 222. Acrelius, an accurate historian, Campanius, a heedless one. Of late writers, Clay's Swe VOL. II. 38 dish Annals. Compare Swedish 25. XV. CHAP. the surrender, they did not much exceed seven hundred souls. Free from ambition, ignorant of the ideas which were convulsing the English mind, it was only as Protestants that they shared the impulse of the age. They cherished the calm earnestness of religious feeling; they reverenced the bonds of family and the purity of morals; their children, under every disadvantage of want of teachers and of Swedish books, were well instructed. With the natives they preserved peace. A love for Sweden, their dear mother country, the abiding sentiment of loyalty towards its sovereign, continued to distinguish the little band; at Stockholm, they remained for a century the objects of a disinterested and generous regard; affection united them in the New World; and a part of their descendants still preserve their altar and their dwellings round the graves of their fathers.1 1656. The conquest of the Swedish settlements was followed by relations bearing a near analogy to the provincial system of Rome. The West India Company desired an ally on its southern frontier; the country above Christiana was governed by Stuyvesant's deputy; Dec. while the city of Amsterdam became, by purchase, the proprietary of Delaware, from the Brandywine to Bombay Hook; and afterwards, under cessions from the na1658, tives, extended its jurisdiction to Cape Henlopen. But did a city ever govern a province with forbearance? The 1657. noble and right honorable lords, the burgomasters of Amsterdam, instituted a paralyzing commercial monopoly, and required of the colonists an oath of absolute obedience to all their past or future commands. But Maryland was free; Virginia governed itself. The 1659. 1656, 1 Kalm's Travels. W. Penn's Letter. Clay's Swedish Annals. XV. restless colonists, almost as they landed, and even the CHAP. soldiers of the garrison, fled in troops from the dominion of Amsterdam to the liberties of English colonies. The province of the city was almost deserted; the attempt to elope was punishable by death, and scarce thirty families remained.1 During the absence of Stuyvesant from Manhattan, 1655. Sept. the warriors of the neighboring Algonquin tribes, never reposing confidence in the Dutch, made a desperate assault on the colony. In sixty-four canoes, they appeared before the town, and ravaged the adjacent country. The return of the expedition restored confidence. The captives were ransomed, and industry repaired its losses. The Dutch seemed to have firmly established their power, and promised themselves happier years. New Netherlands consoled them for the loss of Brazil. They exulted in the possession of an admirable territory, that needed no embankments against the ocean. They were proud of its vast extent, from New England to Maryland, from the sea to the great river of Canada, and the remote north-western wilderness. They sounded with exultation the channel of the deep stream, which was no longer shared with the Swedes; they counted with delight its many lovely runs of water, on which the beaver built their villages; and the great travellers who had visited every continent, as they ascended the Delaware, declared it one of the noblest rivers in the world. Its banks were more inviting than the lands on the Amazon. Meantime the country near the Hudson gained by 1 Albany Records, iv. 217, 222, 223, 237, 273, 311; xviii. 43, 29, 400. Gordon's Pennsylvania, 23. Compare Albany Records, x. 397 468. 2 Vander Donk, p. 8, &c. 5, &c. "Wat treurt men om Brazijl, vol snoode Portugeezen ; Terwijl ons Vander Donk vertoont dit Nieuvve Land?" |