In Sweden the interest in the little American colony was now at its height; and in July and August, 1642, Spiring was consulted in the Råd and the Räkningekammår upon the question of appropriating the funds of the South and Ship Company for the expenses of another expedition across the ocean. This resulted in the formation of a new company, styled the West India, American, or New Sweden Company, although oftener known as the South Company, with a capital of thirty-six thousand riksdaler, half being contributed by the South and Ship Company, one sixth by the Crown, and the remainder by Oxenstjerna, Spiring, Fleming, and others. To it, also, was transferred the monopoly of the tobacco trade in Sweden, Finland, and Ingermanland, which had been granted to the South Company in 1641. On the 15th of August a third governor was commissioned to succeed Hollender in the direction of New Sweden; namely, Johan Printz, who had taken part in the Thirty Years’ War as Lieutenant-Colonel of the West Götha Cavalry, and, after his dismissal from the service for the capitulation of Chemnitz, was engaged in 1641 in procuring emigrants for the colony in Northern Finland. He had been restored to royal favor and ennobled in July. His “Instructions” were likewise dated Aug. 15, 1642, and were signed by Peter Brahe, Herman Wrangel, Clas Fleming, Axel Oxenstjerna, and Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstjerna, Councillors of the Kingdom and Guardians of Queen Christina, who was still in her minority. They are comprised in twenty-eight articles, endowing him with extensive authority in the administration of justice, and enjoining him to keep the monopoly of the fur-trade, and to pay particular attention to the cultivation of the soil,—especially for the planting of tobacco, of which he was expected to ship a goodly quantity on every vessel returning to Sweden,—as well as to have a care of the raising of cattle, of the obtaining of choice woods, of the growth of the grape, production of silk, manufacture of salt, and taking of fish. He was to maintain the Swedish Lutheran form of religion and education of the young, and treat the Indians “with all humanity,” endeavoring to convert them from their paganism, and “in other ways bring them to civilization and good government.” His territory was defined to include all that had been purchased of the natives by Minuit and Hollender, extending, on the west side of the Delaware, from Cape Hinlopen[918] northwards to Sankikan, and on the east from Narraticons Kil southwards to Cape May. Over the whole of this region he was commanded to uphold the supremacy of his sovereign, keeping the Dutch colony under Jost van Bogardt to the observance of their charter, and bringing the English settlers under subjection, or procuring their removal, as he deemed best. His relations with the Holland West India Company and their representatives at Manhattan and Fort Nassau were to be friendly but independent, and, in case of hostile encroachments, “force was to be repelled by force.” On the 30th of August a budget was adopted for New Sweden, specifying, besides the Governor, a lieutenant, sergeant, corporal, gunner, trumpeter, and drummer, with twenty-four private soldiers, and (in the civil list) a preacher, clerk, surgeon, provost, and executioner, their salaries being estimated at 3,020 riksdaler per annum. Fleming and Beier (this year appointed postmaster-general) had the chief direction of the enterprise, and special factors were designated for the Company’s service in Gottenburg and Amsterdam. At length all preparations were completed, and the fourth Swedish expedition to New Sweden, consisting of the ships “Fama” (Fame) and “Svanen” (the Swan), set sail from Gottenburg on the 1st of November, 1642, carrying Printz, with his wife and children, Lieutenant Måns Kling, the Rev. Johan Campanius Holm, and many others, among whom were a number of forest-destroying Finns, sent out as formerly by their respective governors.[919] They pursued the usual course through the English Channel and past the Canary Islands, spending Christmas with the hospitable Governor of Antigua; and, after encountering severe storms, towards the close of January entered Delaware Bay, and on the 15th of February, 1643, landed in safety at Fort Christina.
Unfortunately, the first and very full report of the new governor to the West India Company, dated April 13, 1643, and despatched on the return voyage of the “Fama,” appears to have been irrecoverably lost; but in letters addressed the day before and the day after, respectively, to Councillors Peter Brahe and Axel Oxenstjerna, still preserved in Sweden, Printz gives a favorable account of the country and an interesting description of the natives, and earnestly advises the sending out of more emigrants. Soon after his arrival he made a journey through his territory, sailing up the Delaware to Sankikan, and determined to take up his abode on the Island of Tennakong, or Tinicum, situated about fifteen miles above Christina. Here he built himself a house (Printzhof), and erected a fort of heavy logs, armed with four brass cannon, called Nya Göteborg (New Gottenburg),—a name also bestowed on the whole place in a patent from his sovereign of the 6th of the following November, granting it “to him and his lawful issue as a perpetual possession.” About twenty emigrants settled on this island, with their families, including Printz’s book-keeper and clerk, with his body-guard and the crew of a little yacht used by the Governor. A redoubt was likewise constructed “after the English plan, with three angles,” on the eastern shore, “close to the river,” by a little stream now known as Mill Creek, three or four miles below Varkens Kil, which was named Nya Elfsborg.
It was defended by eight brass twelve-pounders, and committed to the charge of Lieutenant Sven Schute and Sergeant Gregorius van Dyck, with a gunner and drummer and twelve or fifteen common soldiers; and was already occupied in October, when a Dutch skipper, carrying David Pieterszen de Vries on his last voyage to the Delaware, was required to strike his flag in passing the place and give account of his cargo, although the noted patroon was afterward courteously entertained five days at Tinicum by Governor Printz, who bought “wines and sweetmeats” of his captain, and accompanied him on his return as far as Fort Christina.
The latter post remained the chief place of deposit of the stores of the colony under Commissary Hendrick Huygen, and was settled by about forty persons and their families, including the Reverend Johan Campanius, a miller, two carpenters, a few sailors and soldiers, and a dozen peasants, who were occupied in the cultivation of tobacco. A tobacco plantation was also formed the same year on the west side of the Delaware, four or five miles below Tinicum, under the direction of Peter Liljehöck, assisted by an experienced tobacco-grower, specially hired for the service, with a dozen or more husbandmen, and received the name of Upland. About the same time another was begun by Lieutenant Måns Kling, with seven or eight colonists, on the Schuylkill. At first both of these places were destitute of forts, although log houses, strengthened by small stones, were built for the accommodation of the settlers.[920] A large quantity of maize was sown by Printz immediately after his arrival for the sustenance of the colony, but not yielding the results anticipated from certain statements of Governor Hollender, the deficiency was supplied by purchase of some cattle and winter rye at the Island of Manhattan. Provisions were also obtained from Dutch and English vessels which visited the Delaware. During the autumn, rye was planted in three places, and in the following spring some barley, which grew so well, says the Governor, “it was delightful to behold.” For greater convenience of communication between the scattered settlements two boats were built by the carpenters, one for the use of Elfsborg, the other for Christina.
Although the instructions to Governor Printz concerning his relations with the English were probably issued in ignorance of the attempt of Kieft to dislodge the latter from the Delaware, the success of the Dutch Director-General does not seem to have been so complete as to render them superfluous. Lamberton still visited the river for purposes of trade, and a few settlers from New Haven yet remained at Varkens Kil. Printz, therefore, “went to the houses” of these English families, and “forced some of them to swear allegiance to the crown of Sweden.” He also found opportunity of apprehending Lamberton, and brought him before a tribunal comprising Captains Christian Boije and Måns Kling, Commissaries Huygen and Jansen, and six other persons then on the Delaware, assembled in the name of the Swedish sovereign at Fort Christina, July 10, 1643. Printz met two protests made by the Englishman at his trial, claiming land on both sides of the river in virtue of purchases from the Indians, by showing that the territory in question was embraced in tracts already bought of the savages by Governors Minuit and Hollender. He also proved to the satisfaction of the court that Lamberton had traded with the natives in the vicinity even of Fort Christina without leave and in spite of repeated prohibitions, obtaining a quantity of beaver skins, for which the defendant was required by the tribunal to pay double duty. And, finally, Lamberton was accused by the Governor of bribing the Indians to murder the Swedes and Dutch,—a charge which was supported by several witnesses, who also testified that on the day agreed upon an unusual number of savages had assembled in front of Fort Christina, who were, however, frightened off before they could attain their purpose. In passing upon this grave indictment, the court preferred to treat the defendant with clemency “on this occasion,” and postponed action on the subject. These decisions naturally did not content Lamberton, and at a meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, held at Boston September 7, complaint was made by his associates, Governor Theophilus Eaton and Thomas Gregson, of “injuries received from the Dutch and Swedes at Delaware Bay;” when it was “ordered that a letter be written to the Swedish governor, expressing the particulars and requiring satisfaction,” to be signed by John Winthrop “as Governor of Massachusetts and President of the Commissioners.” This resolution was complied with, and a commission was given to Lamberton “to go treat with” Printz upon the subject, and “to agree with him about settling their trade and plantation” on the Delaware. Winthrop’s letter was answered by the Governor of New Sweden, Jan. 12, 1644, with a statement of the facts established at his court already mentioned, and a fresh examination of the matter was instituted on the 16th. This was likewise conducted at Fort Christina, in the presence of the Governor, Captains Boije, Kling, and Turner, Commissary Huygen, Sergeant Van Dyck, Isaac Allerton, and Secretary Carl Janson, and resulted in the exculpation of Printz from the offences charged against him. Copies of these proceedings and of all others relating to the New Haven people were transmitted to a General Court of Massachusetts which met at Boston in March, and Governor Winthrop, in acknowledging the receipt of them in a friendly letter to Governor Printz, promised “a full and particular response at the next meeting of the Commissioners of the United Colonies.” At the same time a fresh commission was issued to Governor Eaton, though “with a salvo jure, allowing him to go on with his plantation and trade in Delaware River,” accompanied by a copy of the Massachusetts patent, which he desired “to show the Swedish governor.” Certain merchants of Boston likewise obtained the privilege of forming a company for traffic in the vicinity of a great lake believed to be the chief source of the beaver trade, which was supposed to lie near the headwaters of the Delaware; and, to carry out their project, despatched a pinnace, well manned and laden, to that river, with a commission “under the public seal,” and letters from the Governor of Massachusetts to Kieft and Printz for liberty to pass their strongholds. “This,” says Winthrop, “the Dutch promised” to concede, though under “protest;” but “when they came to the Swedes, the fort shot at them ere they came up,” obliging them to cast anchor, “and the next morning the Lieutenant came aboard and forced them to fall lower down.” On complaint to Governor Printz, the conduct of that officer was repudiated, and instructions were sent to him from Tinicum not to molest the expedition. All further progress was, however, checked by the Dutch agent at Fort Nassau, who showed an order from his Governor not to let them pass that place; and since neither Printz nor Kieft would permit them to trade with the Indians, they returned home “with loss of their voyage.” The letter which Printz addressed to Winthrop, explaining his actions on this occasion, dated at Tinicum, June 29, 1644, is more amiable than truthful; for in the copy sent to the authorities in Sweden the Governor qualifies his intimation that he promoted the undertaking, with the statement that he took care that the Dutch at Fort Nassau brought it to nought, since it was the purpose of the persons who were engaged in it “to build a fort above the Swedish post at Sankikan, to be armed with men and cannon, and appropriate to themselves all the profits of the river.” Not less successful was the opposition of the Governor to an attempt to invade his territory by the English knight, Sir Edmund Plowden, who had recently come to America to take possession, in virtue of a grant from King Charles I. of England, of a large tract of land, in which New Sweden was included. For though certain of the retainers of this so-styled “Earl Palatine of New Albion,” who had mutinied and left their lord to perish on an island, were apprehended at Fort Elfsborg in May, 1643, and courteously surrendered to him by Printz, the latter refused to permit any vessels trading under his commission to pass up the Delaware, and so “affronted” Plowden that he finally abandoned the river.[921]
The relations between the Swedes and Dutch were seemingly more friendly. “Ever since I came here,” says Printz in his Report of 1644, “the Hollanders have shown great amity, particularly their Director at Manhattan, Willem Kieft, who writes to me very frequently, as he has opportunity, telling the news from Sweden and Holland and other countries of Europe; and though at the first he gave me to understand that his West India Company laid claim to our river, on my replying to him with the best arguments at my command, he has now for a long while spared me those inflictions.”
The Indians always exhibited the most amicable dispositions towards the Swedes, partly no doubt through timidity, but at least equally in consequence of the kind treatment habitually shown them by the colonists of that nation. Still, in the spring of 1644, influenced, it is presumed, by the example of their brethren in Virginia and Maryland and the vicinity of Manhattan, who had recently been provoked to fierce hostility against the Dutch and English, some of the savages massacred two soldiers and a laborer between Christina and Elfsborg, and a Swedish woman and her husband (an Englishman) between Tinicum and Upland. Printz, however, immediately assembling his people at Christina to defend themselves from further outrages, the natives “came together,” says he, “from all sides, heartily apologizing for, and denying all complicity in, the murderous deeds, and suing earnestly for peace.” This was accorded them by the Governor, but “with the menace of annihilation if the settlers were ever again molested.” Whereupon a treaty was signed by the sachems, and ratified by the customary interchange of presents, assuring tranquillity for the future and restoring something of the previous mutual confidence.[922]