tlements formed a part of the republic of New Haven. But in 1642 Kieft sent a couple of sloops with a small force of soldiers who arrested all the English in these two settlements, and carried them to Fort Amsterdam, whence they were sent back to New Haven. In the work of arresting them, a party of Swedes assisted. No blood was shed, but the English complained that they had suffered damages to the amount of £1000 sterling. In that same summer Queen Christina sent out John Printz, who had been a lieutenant of cavalry, to be governor of New Sweden, and she guaranteed military protection to the colony. Printz was instructed to maintain as pleasant relations with both Dutch and English as might be consistent with not allowing either of them to encroach a foot upon his territory. Within its limits nobody was to be permitted to trade in peltries except the agents of the Swedish. Company. The Lutheran was to be John Printz the established church, but the Dutch Reformed Church was to be tolerated. Early in 1643 the new governor arrived at Fort Christina, accompanied by the pastor and historian, John Campanius, and two shiploads of settlers. Printz built on Tinicum Island, on the west shore, about twelve miles below the site of Philadelphia, a fortress of heavy logs, which he called New Gottenburg. Between here and A visit from Fort Christina many farms were planted. Opposite New Gottenburg, on the east shore whence the New Haven people had lately been driven, Printz built a triangular fort which he called Elsingburg and armed it with eight cannon. Now the Dutch Fort Nassau was a few miles higher up the river, and these twin fortresses, New Gottenburg and Elsingburg, watched over the approach to it like Bunyan's lions before Palace Beautiful. Every ship coming up must strike her colours and wait for Governor Printz's permission to pass on. The first person to arrive upon the scene was our old friend David De Vries, the genial mariner and colonist, the racy and charming chronicler. He was coming up the river in a Rotterdam ship when the challenge came from Elsinburg, and the skipper asked him if he had not better lower his flag. "Well," said De Vries, "if it were my ship I should n't lower to these intruders;" but the skipper's view of the case was "anything for a quiet life," and he hauled down his colours. Then an officer came aboard, and they passed on to New Gottenburg, where they were cordially welcomed by Governor Printz, “a brave man of brave size," says De Vries, "for he weighed more than 400 pounds." Printz was delighted at meeting a man of whom he had heard so much, and the fate of whose colony at Swandale had aroused such wide interest. He produced a colossal jug of Rhenish wine, and the evening was passed in friendly discourse. For a dozen years more the colony of New Sweden was suffered to exist, and the altercations which from time to time arose stopped short of warfare. But in Stuyvesant's time, after the peace of Münster, Holland had no longer the same reasons for wishing to keep from interference with Sweden. Moreover, Fall of New Queen Christina was dead, and her Sweden successor, Charles X., was absorbed in that mighty war with Poland which forms the theme of Sienkiewicz's brilliant novel "The Deluge." It was the golden opportunity for New Netherland, and Stuyvesant seized it in the summer of 1655. With a force of seven warships and 700 soldiers he swooped into Delaware Bay and up the river; and there was nothing for New Sweden, whose total population was barely 500 souls, to do but surrender. The settlers were not interfered with, but only changed their allegiance. The time was coming when a precisely similar fate was to overtake Peter Stuyvesant and New Netherland. The relations between the Dutch and British governments were suddenly altered, and into the causes and consequences of this change we shall inquire in the next chapter. Τ' IX DUTCH AND ENGLISH HE year 1651 was an important date in English history. The passage of the Navigation Act in that year marked the beginning of a commercial policy which soon led to disturbances in Massachusetts and Virginia, and in the end played a considerable part among the causes of the separation of the American colonies from the mother country. It also marked a sudden and violent change in the relations between the English and the Dutch. From time immemorial there had been unbroken Change in the relations England and between the Netherlands friendship between the two peoples, and for three centuries the intimacy had been extremely close. In 1584, after the assassination of William the Silent, the people of the Netherlands sent to Elizabeth of England a formal invitation to become their sovereign; but this honour she declined, while she actively intervened in their behalf and sent an army across the Channel to aid them. Now in 1651, after the premature death of William's grandson, William II., a similar proposal to unite the two countries under one government was made by the English and refused by the Dutch. Let us observe how peculiarly the two countries were then situated with reference to each other. The treaty of Münster, in 1648, had at last and forever rid the Dutch of the incubus of Spain. The United Netherlands ranked as the wealthiest nation in the world, with by far the largest merchant marine, and a navy which was rivalled only by that of England. The seven states were united in a loose confederation somewhat like that of the American States between 1776 and 1789. Their States General, assembled at the Hague, had more the character of a diplomatic body than of a sovereign legislature; it was more a congress than a parliament. State rights flourished at the expense of national unity and strength, but there was a party that dreaded too much national unity, very much as it was dreaded in America by Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. The States General constituted but one chamber, but there was another body which discharged many of the functions of an upper house and which represented the nation at large. This was the Council of State, consisting of eighteen men, who were obliged to forswear allegiance to their own states and to take an oath of allegiance to the United Netherlands. The principal executive officer was the stadholder, a word which is Government of the Neth erlands |