A Dutch fleet appeared before New York, July 30, 1673, of such superior strength that effective resistance was impossible. The fort capitulated and New York again became a Dutch city.
The Delaware colony made no resistance; the English were too few in numbers, the Dutch too willing, and the Swedes too indifferent. Peter Alricks again became the commander of the Delaware River.
The renewed Dutch Government lasted only a year, when, by the treaty of Westminster, February 19, 1674, New Netherland was finally ceded to Great Britain.
On June 29, 1674, King Charles gave a new grant to the Duke of York, who appointed Major Edmund Andros governor.
Andros set up a court at Upland in which were settled the controversies of the settlers. He reinstated in office those who had been magistrates at the time of the Dutch conquest, Peter Alricks[Alricks] excepted.
The administration of Andros continued quite seven years, during which the only courts in what is now Pennsylvania were held at Upland. Nearly always the justices were Swedes.
The settlers above Christina Creek formed what later became the Pennsylvania Community. The settlers above the creek attended court at Upland, those below obtained justice at New Castle. This marked division was made November 12, 1678, and from that date the designation “county” became commonly employed.
Swedes’ Mill on Cobb’s Creek set up by Printz, in 1643, continued in use, but another was now built below New Castle. Others were built afterward.
At this time there were no roads, simply paths for man or horse, and cartways where merchandise was to be transported. Such were indicated by blazed trees. November, 1678, the court ordered “that every person should within the space of two months, as far as his land reaches, make good and passable ways from neighbor to neighbor, with bridges where needed, to the end that neighbors on occasion may come together.”
The time now approached when the lands along the shores of the Delaware became a place of refuge for all the sect of Quakers, and March 4, 1681, William Penn received a patent for the lands in America, to which the King gave the name Pennsylvania.