On December 12, 1630, a ship and a yacht for the Zuydt Revier (South River) were sent from the Texel “with a number of people and a large stock of cattle,” the object being, said De Vries, “as well to carry on a whale fishery in that region, as to plant a colony for the cultivation of all sorts of grain, for which the country is well adapted, and of tobacco.”
These colonists made a settlement near the present town of Lewes and called it Swanendael, or the Valley of the Swans. They built a substantial house, surrounded it with palisades, and began their settlement. A few weeks later the Walrus sailed on its return to Holland with De Vries aboard, who left the colony in charge of Gilles Hosset, who had come out as “commissary.” This colony was destined to be the most unfortunate and of short duration.
Early in 1632 De Vries agreed with his associates in Holland to go out to Swanendael himself. He fitted out two vessels, and with them set sail from the Texel, May 24, 1632, to be in good time at his colony, for the winter fishery. The whales, he understood, “come in the winter, and remained until March.”
As he was leaving Holland the bad news reached him that Swanendael had been destroyed by the Indians. The expedition proceeded, however, and it was December 5 when they reached Cape Cornelius and found the melancholy report only too true.
On the 6th De Vries went ashore to view the desolate place. He says:
“I found lying here and there the skulls and bones of our people, and the heads of the horses and cows which they had brought with them.”
No Indians were visible, so he went aboard the boat and let the gunner fire a shot to see if he could find any trace of them. The next day some Indians appeared.
In the conferences which followed, De Vries obtained some explanation of the disaster. It seems to have been the result of a misunderstanding. An Indian, who was induced to remain on board all night December 8, rehearsed the story. Commissary Hosset set up a pole, upon which was fastened a piece of tin bearing the arms of The Netherlands, as an evidence of its claim and profession.
An Indian, seeing the glitter of the tin, ignorant of the object of this exhibition and unconscious of the right of exclusive property, appropriated to his own use this honored symbol “for the purpose of making tobacco pipes.”
The Dutch regarded the offense as an affair of state, not merely a larceny, and Hosset urged his complaints and demands for redress with so much vehemence that the perplexed tribe brought him the head of the offender. This was a punishment which Hosset neither wished nor had foreseen, and he dreaded its consequences.