XIII. The question as to the Delaware, left unsettled, led CHAPTER speedily to new troubles. The project of planting on. that river was revived at New Haven. A company of 1651. adventurers bound thither touched at Manhattan, and, relying on the late treaty, and on letters from the gov ernors of New Haven and Massachusetts, freely avowed their purpose. Stuyvesant, however, seized the ship, detained the emigrants, and, to strengthen the Dutch interest on the river, on the very spot which the New Haven adventurers had intended to occupy, and within five miles of the Swedish fort of Christina, he built Fort Casimir, on the present site of Newcastle. This was denounced at New Haven as a violation of the treaty; and the war which soon broke out between Cromwell and the 1653. Dutch suggested the idea of the conquest of New Netherland, still torn by internal dissensions. The disarming of Fort Bearen, and the imprisonment at New Amsterdam of Van Slechtenhorst, Cuyler's successor as commissary, had produced at Rensselaerswyck great ill feeling, which Stuyvesant aggravated by assuming juris- 1652. diction over Beverwyck as within the precinct of the April 10 company's fort. Van der Donck's complaints, being staved off by the company, resulted only in the establishment of a very narrow municipal government for New 1653. Amsterdam, composed of two burgomasters and five schepens, of whom, however, the director claimed the nomination, while the provincial schout continued to act as city schout also. Yet even with this board it was not easy to agree either as to the revenue it should enjoy or the expenses it should pay-a matter of no little interest in the embarrassed state of the finances, burdened by a loan for repairing the city palisade, and adding a trench and rampart as defenses against New England invasion. The proceedings at New Amsterdam of Leverett and Feb CHAPTER the other New England agents, and how the obstinacy XIII. of Massachusetts became the safety of the Dutch, have 1653. been related in the preceding chapter. Yet, as many aggressions were committed under privateering commissions from Rhode Island, advantage was taken of this Nov. crisis to hold a convention of delegates at New Am sterdam, resulting in the call of a "Landtdag," or Diet, Dec. 10. in which were represented that city and eight villages, four Dutch and four English. Baxter, who seems to have quarreled with Stuyvesant on account of some land grants encroaching on Gravesend, took a very leading part. It was he who drew up the Remonstrance of the Landtdag," complaining of the arbitrary legislation of the director and his council; of his appointment of magistrates without the consent or nomination of the people; and of his favoritism as to grants of land. But, in spite of their appeal to "the law of nature" and the usages of Holland, the "presumption" of these "ignorant subjects" was haughtily rebuked by the director, who refer red to "God and the West India Company" for his authority, and taunted the Dutch members with subscribing Dec. 30. to the "project of an Englishman." Nor could the company see in the Remonstrance one single point to just1654. ify complaint. Stuyvesant was even blamed for not May having suppressed "the seditious" with more vigor, and was directed to punish them " in an exemplary manner;" an order which the peace with England made it the more easy to carry out. The director had already taken care to secure the loyalty of the Dutch villages, Brukelyn, Amersforth (now Flatlands), and Midwout (now Flatpril. bush), by granting them, under the charter of 1640, the same municipal rights which their English neighbors had 1655. long enjoyed; and Baxter was soon after deposed from the magistracy of Gravesend, and, when he attempted to raise an insurrection, was arrested and imprisoned XIII. While these matters were pending, and before the CHAPTER danger on the side of New England was yet over, Ry. singh, coming out to New Sweden with a company of 1654. soldiers, as successor to Printz, succeeded, by stratagem May 31. and the cowardice of the commander, in getting possession of Fort Casimir. But Sweden was no longer a formidable power, and the company sent ships and soldiers to Stuyvesant, with orders to take exclusive pos- 1655 session of the South River. Stuyvesant was absent at the moment on a bootless voyage to Barbadoes, where he found an English fleet which cut him off from the trade he desired. On his return, he proceeded to the South Sept 5 River with six hundred men. New Sweden, of which the whole population did not exceed seven hundred, was unable to make any resistance; and that province was reabsorbed into New Netherland. Such of the Swedes as consented to take an oath of allegiance were guaran. teed the possession of their lands. Those who refused were shipped to Holland. All civil connection with the mother country was henceforth terminated; but the Swedish Lutheran Church, the rights and freedom of which were secured by the capitulation, continued to recognize an ecclesiastical dependence on Sweden down to the time of the American Revolution. The director was hastily recalled from the South Riv er by news of a fresh rupture with the Indians. During his absence a large body of them had visited New Amsterdam in sixty-four canoes. Behaving with some insolence, they were driven out of the town, when they revenged as well this treatment as some other wrongs which they had treasured up, by attacking Pavonia and Staten Island, which were again entirely ruined. In three days a hundred persons were killed, and a hundred and fifty made prisoners. Twenty-eight boweries were CHAPTER broken up, and a loss inflicted estimated at $80,000. XIII. Returning in haste, Stuyvesant took prompt measures 1655. for defense; but he judged it better to ransom the prisoners than to attempt their recovery by arms. '656. To discharge some of its heavy debts, the West India Company sold to the city of Amsterdam the tract just recovered from the Swedes, which thus became again a separate jurisdiction by the name of NEW AMSTEL. Numerous refugee Protestants were sent out at a heavy expense, bound to remain four years in payment of their passage; but they suffered greatly from sickness and famine, and their number was thinned still further by desertions. To the claims set up by Governor Fendal 1659. to this territory as a part of Maryland, the Dutch responded by the plea of prior occupancy, and the re-establishment of a post at Hoarkill. If the West India Com pany would have taken back the colony, the city of Amsterdam would have willingly relinquished it; but as this was declined by the company, which was already $600,000 in advance on account of New Netherland, to prevent conflicts of jurisdiction which had already arisen, 1663, the city became the purchaser of the whole Dutch territory on both banks of the South River. As a protection to the fertile tract on the Esopus, deserted during the late Indian outbreak, a fortified village 1658. had been established there; not, however, without fresh. hostilities with the Indians, provoked by the cruel folly 1661. of the colonists. To this village, called Wildwyck, to Bergen, and to New Haerlam, in the north part of Manhattan Island, village charters were granted. Staten Island, the patroon rights to which were purchased up by the company, was occupied, for the third time, by a colony of Waldenses. The Lutherans had become so numerous at New Am XIII. sterdam as to desire a church of their own; but this was CHAPTER denied them by Stuyvesant, and, on appeal to Holland, by the company also. Instigated by Megapolensis, now 1654 minister at Manhattan, his newly-appointed colleague, Drusius, and Polhemus, a Dutch clergyman recently settled at Midwout, on Long Island, the director even issued a proclamation against conventicles, inflicting fines 1656. upon both preachers and hearers. Though aimed partly, no doubt, at the disaffected Anabaptists at Gravesend, it was indirectly disapproved by the company, who expressly required that all residents should be allowed "the free exercise of their religion within their own houses." Yet, notwithstanding this hint, the proclamation was still enforced against public conventicles, and with special severity against the Quakers, whom Stuyvesant greatly hated and dreaded, and against whom he launched several new proclamations, copied apparently from the legislation of New England. But, on the appeal of John Bowne, of Flushing, who had been imprisoned, fined, and banished, 1663 the company decidedly rebuked these proceedings as tending to prevent the population of the province. Though religious non-conformity was to be regretted, yet, so they wrote to Stuyvesant, to a certain extent, it must be "connived at." "Let every one remain free as long as he is modest, moderate, his political conduct irreproachable, and as long as he does not offend others or oppose the government. This maxim of moderation has always been the guide of our magistrates in this city, and the consequence has been that people have flocked from every land to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps, and we doubt not you will be blessed." East Hampton, at the extreme eastern end of Long 1658. Island, purchased of the sachem of Montauk in 1648, had annexed itself to Connecticut in 1658. Some set |