Started thus in the wrong direction, it was easy for the colonial government to go from bad to worse. At a time when the entire force of Dutch clergy in the colony numbered only four, they were most unapostolically zealous to prevent any good from being done by "unauthorized conventicles and the preaching of unqualified persons," and procured the passing of an ordinance forbidding these under penalty of fine and imprisonment. The mild remonstrances of the Company, which was eager to get settlers without nice inquiries as to their religious opinions, had little effect to restrain the enterprising orthodoxy of Peter Stuyvesant. The activity of the Quakers among the Long Island towns stirred him to new energy. Not only visiting missionaries, but quiet dwellers at home, were subjected to severe and ignominious punishments. The persecution was kept up until one of the banished Friends, John Bowne, reached Amsterdam and laid the case before the Company. This enlightened body promptly shortened the days of tribulation by a letter to the superserviceable Stuyvesant, conceived in a most commercial spirit. It suggested to him that it was doubtful whether further persecution was expedient, unless it was desired to check the growth of population, which at that stage of the enterprise ought rather to be encouraged. No man, they said, ought to be molested so long as he disturbed neither his neighbors nor the government. "This maxim has always been the guide of the magistrates of this city, and the consequence has been that from every land people have flocked to this asylum. Tread thus in their steps, and we doubt not you will be blessed."
The stewardship of the interests of the kingdom of Christ in the New Netherlands was about to be taken away from the Dutch West India Company and the classis of Amsterdam. It will hardly be claimed by any that the account of their stewardship was a glorious one. The supply of ministers of the gospel had been tardy, inconstant, and scanty. At the time when the Dutch ministers were most active in hindering the work of others, there were only four of themselves in a vast territory with a rapidly increasing population. The clearest sign of spiritual life in the first generation of the colony is to be found in the righteous quarrel of Domine Bogardus with the malignant Kieft, and the large Christian brotherly kindness, the laborious mission work among the Indians, and the long-sustained pastoral faithfulness of Domine Megapolensis.
Doubtless there is a record in heaven of faithful living and serving of many true disciples among this people, whose names are unknown on earth; but in writing history it is only with earthly memorials that we have to do. The records of the Dutch régime present few indications of such religious activity on the part of the colonists as would show that they regarded religion otherwise than as something to be imported from Holland at the expense of the Company.
A studious and elegant writer, Mr. Douglas Campbell, has presented in two ample and interesting volumes[74:1] the evidence in favor of his thesis that the characteristic institutions established by the Puritans in New England were derived, directly or indirectly, not from England, but from Holland. One of the gravest answers to an argument which contains so much to command respect is found in the history of the New Netherlands. In the early records of no one of the American colonies is there less manifestation of the Puritan characteristics than in the records of the colony that was absolutely and exclusively under Dutch control and made up chiefly of Dutch settlers. Nineteen years from the beginning of the colony there was only one church in the whole extent of it; at the end of thirty years there were only two churches. After ten years of settlement the first schoolmaster arrived; and after thirty-six years a Latin school was begun, for want of which up to that time young men seeking a classical education had had to go to Boston for it. In no colony does there appear less of local self-government or of central representative government, less of civil liberty, or even of the aspiration for it. The contrast between the character of this colony and the heroic antecedents of the Dutch in Holland is astonishing and inexplicable. The sordid government of a trading corporation doubtless tended to depress the moral tone of the community, but this was an evil common to many of the colonies. Ordinances, frequently renewed, for the prevention of disorder and brawling on Sunday and for restricting the sale of strong drinks, show how prevalent and obstinate were these evils. In 1648 it is boldly asserted in the preamble to a new law that one fourth of the houses in New Amsterdam were devoted to the sale of strong drink. Not a hopeful beginning for a young commonwealth.
Before bidding a willing good-bye to the Dutch régime of the New Netherlands, it remains to tell the story of another colony, begun under happy auspices, but so short-lived that its rise and fall are a mere episode in the history of the Dutch colony.
As early as 1630, under the feudal concessions of the Dutch West India Company, extensive tracts had been taken on the South River, or Delaware, and, after purchase from the Indians, settled by a colony under the conduct of the best of all the Dutch leaders, De Vries. Quarrels with the Indians arose, and at the end of a twelvemonth the colony was extinguished in blood. The land seemed to be left free for other occupants.
Years before, the great Gustavus Adolphus had pondered and decided on an enterprise of colonization in America.[76:1] The exigencies of the Thirty Years' War delayed the execution of his plan, but after the fatal day of Lützen the project resumed by the fit successor of Gustavus in the government of Sweden, the Chancellor Oxenstiern. Peter Minuit, who had been rejected from his place as the first governor of New Amsterdam, tendered to the Swedes the aid of his experience and approved wisdom; and in the end of the year 1637, against the protest of Governor Kieft, the strong foundations of a Swedish Lutheran colony were laid on the banks of the Delaware. A new purchase was made of the Indians (who had as little scruple as the Stuart kings about disposing of the same land twice over to different parties), including the lands from the mouth of the bay to the falls near Trenton. A fort was built where now stands the city of Wilmington, and under the protection of its walls Christian worship was begun by the first pastor, Torkillus. Strong reinforcements arrived in 1643, with the energetic Governor Printz and that man of "unwearied zeal in always propagating the love of God," the Rev. John Campanius, who through faith has obtained a good report by his brief most laborious ministry both to his fellow-countrymen and to the Delaware Indians.
The governor fixed his residence at Tinicum, now almost included within the vast circumference of Philadelphia, and there, forty years before the arrival of William Penn, Campanius preached the gospel of peace in two languages, to the red men and to the white.