In vain he reprehended the severity of the Indians, and told them had they brought the delinquent to him, he would have been dismissed with a reprimand. The love of vengeance, inseparable from the Indian character, sought a dire gratification; and, though the culprit was executed by his own tribe, still they beheld its cause in the exaction of the strangers.
Availing themselves of the season in which many of the Dutch were engaged in the cultivation of the fields, at a distance from their house, the Indians entered it, under the amicable pretense of trade, and murdered the unsuspicious Hosset, also a sentinel who attended him. They proceeded to the fields, fell upon the laborers and massacred every individual.
De Vries did not put the blame on Hosset, but the colony was ruined. Neither did he chastise the natives nor send out a punitive expedition against them; more bloodshed would not heal the wounds already made. With a view to future fishing, he exchanged some goods with the Indians, and made an engagement of peace.
On January 1, 1634, he proceeded up the river and on the 6th arrived at Fort Nassau. It was now deserted, except by Indians. He was suspicious of these, and traded with extreme caution. He remained in the vicinity of the fort for four days, ever on the alert. He nearly fell a victim here to the perfidy of the natives.
They directed him to haul his yacht into the narrow Timmer-Kill, which furnished a convenient place for an attack, but he was warned by a female of the tribe of their design, and told the English crew of a vessel which had been sent from Virginia to explore the river the September previous had been murdered. De Vries then hastened to Fort Nassau, which he found filled with savages.
On January 10 he drifted his yacht off on the ebbtide, anchored at noon “on the bar at Jacques Island” and on the 13th rejoined his ship at Swanendael.
Jacques Island has been identified as Little Tinicum, opposite the greater Tinicum which is now part of Delaware County. The kill in which he lay was therefore Ridley, or perhaps Chester Creek. In either case, it seems, De Vries was then within the State of Pennsylvania.
In April De Vries returned to Holland. Thus at the expiration of twenty-five years from the discovery of the Delaware by Hudson, not a single European remained upon its shores.