XV. Sept. 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 to conclude a provisional treaty, which allowed New I Netherland 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. 2 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 Williams3 delayed an armament against New Netherland. 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.' 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. 15. 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 peace in Europe soon quieted every apprehension. of 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 Near the southern frontier of New Belgium, on Dela21. ware Bay, the favor of Strafford had also obtained for 1641 Sir Edward Ployden a patent for New Albion. The 1648. county never existed, except on parchment. The lord June to palatine attempted a settlement; but, for want of a pilot, he entered 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 Netherland 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 €54, 655. metropolis was exhausted by a long succession of wars; 1 B. Plantagenet's Description of New Albion, 1648, in the library of the Library Company, Philadel phia. Hazard, i. 160, &c. Wiuthrop, ii. 325. XV Nov 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 capacity 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 16. 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 Of late writers, Clay's SweVOL. II. one. 38 dish Annals. Compare Swedish 25. |