MAP OF THE ATLANTIC COLONIES.
This is the curious map given in Campanius, p. 52. It was probably suggested by, although it does not follow, a detailed and interesting manuscript map of the Atlantic coast from Cape Henry to Cape Ann, by Peter Lindstrom, 19¼ x 6⅞ inches in size, including “Virginia,” “Nova Suecia,” “Nova Batavia,” and “Nova Anglia,” which will soon be printed by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. [The New England region has some reminiscences of John Smith’s map of 1614, though that first explorer did not place Mount Massachusetts (Chevyot Hills,—that is, the modern Blue Hills of Milton) on the borders of Lake Champlain; but he did give the entities of London and Bristow to non-existing towns. The early Dutch maps are responsible for the curiously-shaped shoal off Cape Cod, and for the southern line of New England running west from Pye Bay (Nahant). There was, of course, a necessity of bringing “Massa Chuser” in some way above that line.—Ed.]
About this time, however, the King’s attention was absorbed by enterprises in Poland, and soon after by the first war with Denmark, and nothing was accomplished; but at a meeting of his Council, April 15, 1658, his Majesty “decided, en passant, that New Sweden was well worth endeavoring to recover;” and in a decree concerning the tobacco trade, of the 22d of May, the monopoly of the West India Company was further defined, “chiefly, that the important colony of New Sweden might be preserved now and hereafter to the great advantage” of the kingdom, “and that the settlements of subjects in that region be not entirely abandoned.” Still nothing was attempted on behalf of the colony, doubtless in consequence of the breaking out of the second war with Denmark. The Company was dissolved and the tobacco trade enfranchised in 1662. The next year a fruitless demand upon the States-General for damages was made by the Swedish Regency,[935] which was followed, on the rise of difficulties between England and Holland in 1664, by the issue of orders to Appelboom to give heed to the negotiations of these powers, and to protest against the formal relinquishing of New Sweden to either nation before the indemnification of his own. During the latter year attention was still further attracted to the colony by the arrival in the spring at Amsterdam, on a Dutch ship from Christiania, of a hundred and forty Finns from the region of Sundsvall, who had been encouraged to emigrate by letters from relatives and friends who were living on the Delaware. The Swedish Government, not knowing of this correspondence, and supposing the Finns had been enticed by secret emissaries from Holland, instructed Resident Peter Trotzig and Appelboom to remonstrate against the enterprise, and to demand that the people should be returned “at the cost of those who had deceived them.” Nevertheless, the emigrants sailed in June for New Sweden in a vessel furnished by the city of Amsterdam; and the Swedish authorities were obliged to content themselves with requiring strict surveillance on the part of the governors of certain provinces in Finland to prevent such actions in the future. The matter was not referred to in the memorials addressed by Appelboom to the States-General the same month, although these boldly claimed restitution of the territory of New Sweden to the Swedish West India Company, with reimbursement of all damages sustained by it,—in support of which demands the Government also solicited the countenance and aid of France and England. This topic was renewed on occasion of the embassy of Isbrandt to Sweden; and at a conference held Nov. 16, 1665, after some attempts to defend the conduct of his countrymen on the Delaware, the Dutch envoy actually proposed that Swedes and Hollanders should endeavor, “junctis viribus,” to retake the territory from the English, who then controlled it. Isbrandt afterward requested proofs of the Swedish claims, for presentation to his Government. On Dec. 24, 1666, the College of Commerce was commanded to furnish these evidences to Count Christoffer Delphicus von Dohna and Appelboom, who were appointed to treat with the States-General upon the subject. A paper was drawn up, therefore, by that body, Feb. 27, 1667, comprising the usual arguments and copies of documents, with specifications of the losses of the Swedish West India Company, including interest amounting to the sum of 262,240 riksdaler. On the other hand, the Dutch negotiators, among whom were Isbrandt and John de Witt, produced counter claims and complaints of the Dutch Company, and demanded that “the pretensions on both sides be reciprocally dismissed.” At the final convention at the Hague, July 18, it was “ordered and decreed” that these controversies “be examined as soon as possible by his Majesty’s envoy, according to the principles of justice and equity, and satisfaction then, immediately and without delay, be given to the injured party.” It could hardly be expected, however, that the Hollanders would pay claims on property no longer theirs, especially when the loss of New Netherland had well nigh ruined the Dutch West India Company, which ought, ordinarily, to have met the obligations thus incurred. That nothing was done is evident from the fact that the Swedish Government soon afterward exerted itself, with unrepining zeal, to obtain indemnity from the power now exercising dominion over their former territory. Before the terms of the Peace of Breda were known, instructions had been issued to Dohna “to inquire whether England or Holland was in possession of New Sweden, and treat with the proper nation for the restoration of it to Sweden;” and April 28, 1669, Leyonberg, still Swedish minister at London, was required, “without attracting attention, secretly, adroitly, and cautiously” to endeavor to discover what England designed to do with her new acquisition. Subsequently papers were drawn up, setting forth the grounds of the Swedish claim to the territory in dispute, and the English ambassador at Stockholm promised “to contribute his best offices with his sovereign” to procure its recognition. From a response of Leyonberg to his Swedish Majesty, dated July 24, 1669, we learn that the question had been mooted by him, but was always put aside with assertions of the rights of England, in view of the neglect of Sweden to demand her colony at the conclusion of peace. Concerning the condition of the settlement, he had heard great praise of “the diligence and industry, the alacrity and docility of the Swedes” then dwelling on the Delaware, and had been told “their lands were the best cultivated in all that region.” Since we do not meet with any evidence that the Swedish claims were ever again referred to, we presume that at last the subject was dropped, and that henceforth the American colony was universally regarded as finally lost to Sweden.
Thus terminates the history of New Sweden under Swedish sovereignty. Although for twenty-five years after the departure of the last governor the people whose immigration to our continent has been related were almost the only civilized residents on the shores of the Delaware, and were practically nearly as independent as their fathers under the rules of Queen Christina and King Charles X. (Gustavus), they were now nominally subjects of their High Mightinesses the Lords States-General, and later of King Charles II. of England, and their career is properly included in accounts of the Dutch and English dominions of that epoch. Henceforth their connection with the mother country was confined to the limited ecclesiastical sphere of the Swedish Lutheran religion; and this was only ultimately brought to a close at the death of the Reverend Nicholas Collin, the last Swedish pastor of Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia, in 1831, a hundred and seventy-six years after the conquest of New Sweden by Governor Stuyvesant. During all this period of perpetual contact with an enormously increasing population of other races, certain of the descendants of the Swedes who first cultivated this region sedulously observed ancestral customs, and preserved the knowledge and use of their maternal tongue within family circles. And if, on the other hand, intermarriage with their neighbors eventually confounded many of the old stock with English and German colonists of later immigrations, this merely extended the influence of that virtuous and industrious people, who became the progenitors of not a few citizens of note of several of our chief provinces and commonwealths. The colonization scheme we have endeavored to portray failed, without doubt, of the significance anticipated for it in the enlargement of the empire and the development of the trade and commerce of Sweden; but it formed the nucleus of the civilization which afterward acquired such expansion under William Penn and his contemporaries through the founding of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey, and was the first impulse of that modern movement,—in strong contrast with the wild spirit of the ancient Scandinavian sea-kings and pre-Columbian discoverers of America,—which has contributed so large and useful a population to Illinois and Wisconsin and other Western States of our Republic.
[CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
THE earliest information we possess concerning New Sweden is found in the charter granted by King Gustavus Adolphus in 1624 to the Australian Company.[936] During the ensuing decade were published other documents mentioned in the beginning of the preceding narrative.[937]
