A second expedition to New Sweden had already been projected, which Queen Christina and the Swedish partners in the South Company determined to render more national in character than that conducted by Minuit. Natives of Sweden were particularly invited to engage in it; and none volunteering to do so, the governors of Elfsborg and Värmland were directed to procure married soldiers who had evaded service or committed some other capital offence, who, with their wives and children, were promised the liberty of returning home at pleasure at the end of one or two years.
Through the zeal of Fleming, the President of the College of Commerce, and his efficient secretary Johan Beier, a number of emigrants were at last assembled at Gottenburg, and put on board the “Kalmar Nyckel,” freshly equipped and provided with a new crew by Spiring and Blommaert in Holland, and commanded by a Dutch captain, Cornelis van Vliet, who had been for several years in the Swedish service. The vessel was also to carry out the second governor of New Sweden, Lieutenant Peter Hollender, commissioned July 1, 1639, who was probably, as his name indicates, a Dutchman, and (since he signed himself “Ridder”) doubtless a nobleman. The ship sailed in the beginning of autumn, but, springing a leak in the German Ocean, was obliged thrice to return to Holland for repairs, when the captain was finally discharged for dishonesty and negligence, and another, named Pouwel Jansen, was engaged to take his place. At length, on the 7th of February, 1640, the “Kalmar Nyckel” left the Texel, and reached Christina in safety the 17th of the following April.[915]
How the first settlers had fared since the departure of Minuit, we are unfortunately not informed by them; but it is testified by Governor Kieft that they succeeded in appropriating a large trade with the natives, which “wholly ruined” that of the Dutch. Still, according to the same authority, the arrival of the second colony was singularly opportune, since they had determined to quit the Delaware and remove the very next day to New Amsterdam. Such an intention was of course at once abandoned, and Governor Hollender strengthened his foothold on the river by securing a title from the Indians to the western bank of it as far north as Sankikan (near Trenton Falls), in spite of the protests of the Dutch Commissary, who even fired upon him as he sailed past Fort Nassau. A letter of remonstrance was sent to this officer by the Swedish governor, but his instructions requiring him to deal gently with the Hollanders, and his people being afterward treated by Governor Kieft “with all civility,” no serious collisions occurred between the rival nations during his direction of the colony. The “Kalmar Nyckel” was soon made ready for her return voyage, and, sailing in May, arrived in July at Gottenburg.
The constant intercourse of the Swedish authorities with prominent merchants of Amsterdam in founding the Colony of New Sweden had by this time attracted the attention of other Hollanders to the settlement now successfully established, and the liberality of the terms accorded the Swedish company induced Myndert Myndertsen van Horst, of Utrecht, to appeal to Queen Christina for the privilege of planting a Dutch colony within the limits of her territory, after the model of the patroonships of their own West India Company. This favor was conceded in a charter of the 24th of January, 1640, which was transferred by Van Horst to Hendrik Hoochcamer and other fellow-countrymen, granting the right to take up land on both sides of the Delaware, four or five German miles below Christina, to be held hereditarily under the Crown of Sweden, with freedom from taxation for ten years, but subject to the restriction that their trade be carried on in vessels built in New Sweden and confined to Swedish ports, and also assuring liberty for the exercise of their so-called Reformed religion. Simultaneously with the charter, a passport was issued for the ship “Fredenburg,” Captain Jacob Powelsen, to carry the emigrants, and a commission for Jost van Bogardt, as Swedish agent in New Sweden, with special authority over this colony. The latter was likewise the leader of the expedition, which was composed chiefly of persons from the province of Utrecht; and he arrived with it at the Delaware on the 2d of November, 1640. The Dutchmen appear to have seated themselves three or four Swedish miles from Christina. So little mention, however, is afterward made of this peculiarly constituted settlement,[916] it seems probable that it soon lost its individuality.
About this time occurred the first attempt on the part of the inhabitants of New England to obtain a foothold in New Sweden. Captain Nathaniel Turner is said to have bought land from the Indians “on both sides of Delaware Bay or River,” as agent of New Haven, in 1640; and in April, 1641, a similar purchase was made by George Lamberton, also of New Haven, notwithstanding one of the tracts acquired in this manner was comprised within that long before sold by the natives to the Swedish governors, while the other, extending from Cape May to Narraticons Kil (or Raccoon Creek), on the eastern shore of the Delaware, had been conveyed only three days earlier, by the same sachem, to Governor Hollender. Taking advantage of this nugatory title, and in contravention of engagements entered into with Director Kieft, some twenty English families, numbering about sixty persons, settled at Varkens Kil (now Salem Creek, New Jersey), whose “plantations” were pronounced, at a General Court held in New Haven, Aug. 30, 1641, to be “in combination with” that town.
Meanwhile preparations were making in Sweden to send forth a fresh expedition to America. On the 13th of July, 1640, the Governor of Gottenburg was enjoined to persuade families of his province to emigrate, “with their horses and cattle and other personal property.” On the 29th the Governor of Värmland and Dal was directed to enlist certain Finns, who had been forced to enter the army as a punishment for violating a royal edict against clearing land in that province by burning forests; and on the 30th the Governor of Örebro was instructed to induce people of the same race, roaming about the mining districts under his jurisdiction, to accompany the rest to the Transatlantic Colony. Lieutenant Måns Kling, who had returned in the “Kalmar Nyckel,” was also especially commissioned, on the 26th of the following September, to aid in this work in the mining regions and elsewhere, and particularly to procure homeless Finns, who were living in the woods upon the charity of the settled population of Sweden. In all these mandates the fertility of the new country and the advantages of colonists in it are clearly intimated; and in the last it is declared to be the royal aim that the inhabitants of the kingdom may enjoy the valuable products of that land, increase in commerce and in knowledge of the sea, and enlarge their intercourse with foreign nations. In May, 1641, the people collected by Kling accompanied him on the ship “Charitas” from Stockholm to Gottenburg, where they were joined by the others, who by that time were ready to set forth. On the 20th of February the Government had resolved to buy out the Dutch partners in their enterprise, instructing Spiring to pay them eighteen thousand gulden from the public funds, provided they abandoned all further claims. This, no doubt, was done; and thus the third Swedish expedition to New Sweden sailed under the auspices of a purely Swedish company. It comprised the well-tried “Kalmar Nyckel” and the “Charitas,” and arrived at its place of destination probably in the summer or autumn of 1641.[917]
Nothing is known with regard to New Sweden at this period; but in the spring of 1642 some of the colonists from New Haven, already spoken of, took possession of a tract of land, which they claimed to have purchased of the Indians on the 19th of April, on the west side of the Delaware, extending from Crum Creek a short distance above the Schuylkill, and proceeded to build a trading-house on the latter stream. This attracted the attention of Director Kieft, and on the 22d of May he despatched two sloops from New Amsterdam with instructions to Jan Jansen van Ilpendam, the Dutch commissary at Fort Nassau, to expel the English from the Delaware. His orders were promptly executed; and the settlements on the Schuylkill and (it is said) at Varkens Kil were broken up, partly through the aid of the Swedes, who had agreed with Kieft “to keep out the English,” the trespassers being taken to Fort Amsterdam, from whence they were sent home to New Haven. Lamberton, still persisting in trading on the Delaware, was arrested not long afterward at Manhattan, and compelled to give an account of his peltries, and to pay duties on his cargo. According to Governor John Winthrop, of Massachusetts, such “sickness and mortality” prevailed this summer in New Sweden as “dissolved” the plantations of the English, and seriously affected the Swedes.