By Friday the fleet reached Fort Casimer, now in control of the Swedes, and renamed Fort Trinity. The garrison was in command of Sven Schute, while Governor Rysingh, in person, had charge of Christina, in what is now Wilmington, Del.
To prevent a communication of the two forts Stuyvesant had landed fifty men. The demand made by the Dutch was a “direct restitution of their own property,” to which Commander Schute, after having had an interview with Stuyvesant, reluctantly yielded on the following day upon very favorable terms of capitulation.
The nine guns of the fort were to be reserved for the Swedish “crown” and removed when convenient. The Swedes were to march out, twelve fully equipped, the rest with their side-arms. Stuyvesant proclaimed that Swedes who would take the oath of allegiance to him might remain unmolested, and twenty did so.
The surrender of Schute was unknown to Governor Rysingh, and his position was virtually untenable. He had placed some of his best men in the captured fort, and an additional party, sent the very day of the surrender. He prepared for resistance, collected all the people for the defense of Fort Christina, and strengthened the ramparts.
On September 12, the Dutch appeared on the opposite side of Christina Creek, and the siege began, which was continued uninterruptedly for fourteen days.
On the 16th, Stuyvesant sent a letter “claiming the whole river.” Rysingh replied asserting the rights of the Swedes on the Delaware and protesting against the Dutch invasion. Stuyvesant renewed his demand, and Rysingh next urged that the boundaries between the Swedish and Dutch colonies be settled by the Governments at home, or by commissioners to be agreed upon.
Only delay resulted. Stuyvesant was cocksure of his ability to capture the fort, and was satisfied to wait. It would have been folly in Rysingh, with his thirty men to have begun to fight. During the long siege no one was killed or wounded. September 25, Rysingh surrendered. A formal capitulation was drawn up and signed by the two commanders on the parade-ground outside the fort.
The soldiers were to march out with the honors of war. The guns and everything to remain the property of the Swedes. The Swedish settlers might stay or go, as they chose, and for a year and six weeks, if they stayed, need not take the Dutch oath of allegiance.
Swedes who remained should enjoy the Lutheran faith, and have a minister to instruct them. Rysingh and the commissary, Elswick, were to be taken to Manhattan, and thence provided with passage to Europe. Thus ended the short but exciting career of Governor Rysingh, and with him fell the whole Swedish Colony.
Soon thereafter, Rysingh with other Swedish officials, proceeded to Manhattan. Rysingh, Lindstrom, the engineer; Elswick, the commissary, and the two clergymen, Hjort and Nertunius, sailed on a Dutch merchant vessel early in November, and were landed in Plymouth, England, where a report of the Dutch conquest was made to Lyderberg, the Swedish Ambassador to England.