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Each English attempt to gain a firm foothold on the banks of the Delaware had been blocked by the Dutch, assisted after 1638 by the Swedes. The major efforts had been made successively by a small party of Englishmen from Virginia, by merchants from the New Haven colony, and by the organizers of a Delaware Company in the Massachusetts Bay colony. A lesser-known attempt at settlement on the Delaware had also been made by Sir Edmund Plowden, as part of his plan to found New Albion, but it, too, failed. In 1659, another English voice was heard — that of Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, who claimed that the charter of Maryland, granted to him in 1632 by Charles I, included the territory on the western side of Delaware below the fortieth parallel.
The reader has already seen that prior to 1634, the time Lord Baltimore's colonists arrived in Maryland, the Dutch had started colonies on Burlington Island and Swanendael; they had also built Fort Nassau and Fort Beversreede. The Maryland settlers were not well informed about this prior Dutch activity on the Delaware River. By 1658, the governor and council of Maryland awakened to the fact that the Dutch were on the Delaware and that the principal place of their settlement, New Amstel, was within the limits of the Maryland grant. Colonel Nathaniel Utie, a member of the council, was sent to New Amstel to tell the intruders to leave!
Utie's instructions directed him to require the trespassers either p234 to depart from the Delaware or to acknowledge Lord Baltimore's authority and become his obedient subjects.1 When Utie arrived in Director Alricks' presence, he became more arrogant and demanding than his instructions provided; in fact, he issued an ultimatum. If the Dutch did not comply, he said, he would not hold himself responsible for the blood that would be spilled. He pointed out that Lord Baltimore had power to make war and peace without consulting anyone. He consented to give Alricks three weeks to consult his superiors and submit, after which he threatened to invade the Delaware settlement.2 Alrick was not prepared for trouble or war, nor was Stuyvesant, to whom he turned for assistance. After all, the Company had sold to the City of Amsterdam land that was supposed to be unincumbered, and Alricks held Stuyvesant responsible. The result was that a Dutch diplomatic mission, consisting of the brilliant surveyor and geographer, Augustine Herrman, and Resolved Waldron, was sent to Maryland to represent the Dutch in conversation with the English authorities. Stuyvesant also sent Cornelis van Ruyven and Captain Martin Creiger to New Amstel as his commissioners with fifty soldiers to prepare a defense.3 Herrman and Waldron conferred with Governor Josias Fendall, Philip Calvert (a younger half-brother of Cecil, Lord Baltimore), who was destined to succeed Fendall, and the members of the council. They presented a communication from Stuyvesant and also made their own representations, from which the following is excerpted:
And as for the Sowth River or as it is called by the English Delaware int particular: The said River was in the primitive tyme likewise possessed, and a collony planted in the Western Shore within the mouth of the Sowth Cape called the Hoore Kill to this p235 day, The Dutch Nation erecting there and all over the Countrey their States Armes and a little fforte, but after some tyme they were all slain and murthered by the Indians. Soe that the possessions and property of this River at the first in his Infancy is Sealed up with the blood of a great many Sowles. After this in the yeare 1623 [sic.] the fforte Nassaw was built about 15 leagues up the River of the Eastern Shore, besides many other places of the Dutch and the Dutch Swedes to and againe settled.4
By the "Dutch Swedes" they meant those colonists brought from Sweden in 1638 by Minuit, because "the greatest number of them were partners of Dutchmen," but (Herrman said) they became so insolent that the Stuyvesant government was compelled to put them in their place.5
At several meetings with Fendall and his associates, Herrman and Waldron argued eloquently and logically for the Dutch right to occupy the Delaware. Fendall rebutted with what he believed was equally logical argument in support of the English position. In the heat of the discussion, the English made the error of showing the Dutch ambassadors a copy of Baltimore's Maryland patent and giving them an opportunity to make an extract of it. It is not known whether it was Herrman or Waldron who pounced on the technicality of a Latin phrase in the charter which Fendall had overlooked, so history must credit both of them for exposing the words hactenus inculta ("not yet cultivated and planted"). These words would become the basis of litigation between the Calverts and Penns over the boundary question for years to come. There was no doubt that the Dutch had "cultivated and planted" the western side of the river at Swanendael before Charles I issued the charter to Cecil Calvert. Therefore, Herrman and Waldron argued, Lord Baltimore had no right to this land under the terms of his charter.
p236 Waldron returned to Manhattan with reports, papers, and documents respecting the negotiations and a polite letter from Fendall to Stuyvesant protesting Dutch occupancy of the Delaware. Herrman went to Virginia to solicit moral support there for the Dutch cause. But no English attack came at New Amstel such as Utie had threatened, and the Dutch settlers pursued their daily activities in peace. Back in England, Cecil Calvert sent, as his attorney, Captain James Neale, to protest to the Assembly of XIX at Amsterdam, but New Amstel still remained in Dutch hands.6
After Neale's visit, the Assembly of XIX appealed to States General to request the Dutch ambassador in England to order Lord Baltimore to desist from his pretension. Meanwhile, Lord Baltimore sent Captain Neale to his colony with a message to the officers of his government urging them to cooperate and to "think upon some speedy and effectual Waye for Reduceing the Dutch in Delaware Baye. The New England men will be assisting in itt and Secretary Ludwell of Virginea assured me before he went from thence that the Virgineans will be soe toe . . . ."7 But the Maryland council, with or without the assistance of the New Englanders, was not eager to start a war with the Dutch in New Netherland, with whom Maryland was then enjoying profitable trade relations; the Dutch were furnishing much-needed negro slaves and other commodities in exchange for tobacco. Furthermore, the council, not having the benefit of an accurate land survey, had some doubt whether New Amstel was actually within the bounds of Lord Baltimore's patent,8 Philip Calvert, who succeeded Fendall, became very friendly with his Dutch neighbors, and so the relations between Maryland and New Netherland during this period were amicable. Thus, the Dutch continued to p237 remain in control of the Delaware, but dark clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon.
On March 12, 1664, Charles II granted to his brother James, Duke of York (who would later become James II), a patent conveying proprietary rights to the land in America from the St. Croix River in New England to and including the east side of Delaware Bay. The grant embraced most of New Netherland, as well as part of the New Albion tract granted Sir Edmund Plowden in 1634, but which he had not succeeded in colonizing. The grant to the Duke did not, however, include New Amstel, the Hoerenkil, nor the other territory occupied by Dutch, Swedes, and Finns along the westside of the Delaware. War was then in the making between England and Holland (it broke out April 20, 1665) and the Duke was not deterred by any fear of antagonizing the Dutch, with whom relations were already strained almost to the breaking point. Furthermore, he ignored Plowden's rights to New Albion, whose charter, incidentally, had been inherited by Thomas Plowden, Sir Edmund's son. Indeed, the Duke didn't seem concerned if he overlapped the territory of the Baltimores. Therefore, when he sent over a fleet from England to seize and exercise ownership over his grant, he instructed his officers to capture all of New Netherland, including the western side of the Delaware River.
Governor Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam, as Dutch then called their town on Manhattan Island, to the superior English force consisting of four warships. Colonel Richard Nicholls, "a groom of the Duke's bedchamber," who was in command of the expedition, was also the deputy-governor, appointed by the Duke as his chief administrator in the new territory. Assisting Nicholls were three commanders, one of whom, Sir Robert Carr, an ambitious but impecunious nobleman, was to play an important part in bringing English rule to the p238 Dutch settlements on the western side of the Delaware.
The commission given to Sir Robert Carr on September 2, 1664, read in part as follows:
Whereas we are enformed that the Dutch have seated themselves at Delaware bay, on his Maty of great Brittaines territoryes without his knowledge and consent, and that they have fortifyed themselves there, and drawne great trade thither . . . . . . And by these do order & Appoint that his Maties ffrygotts, the Guinney and the William & Nicholas and all the Souldyers which are not in the Fort [at New York] shall with what speed they conveniently can go thither, under command of Sr Robert Carr to reduce the same.9
The William & Nicholas was an armed merchant ship under command of Captain Thomas Morley. The Guinney, Sir Robert's "flagship," was a large, fully armed man o'war carrying forty guns, under the command of Captain Hugh Hyde.10 Lieutenant John Carr (promoted to the rank of captain before the campaign ended) and Ensign Arthur Stocke were two of the officers in charge of more than one-hundred foot soldiers transported by the vessels.
'This objective was to effect a change of masters on the Delaware (as had been done at New York) with a minimum of bloodshed and as little disturbance as possible to the social and economic systems. Carr had been carefully instructed how to handle Charles Calvert, Cecil's son, who had succeeded Philip two years before as governor of Maryland, in the event he offered objection or resistance. Carr was to inform him that his majesty had, at great expense, sent ships and soldiers to reduce all foreigners in these parts; that he was instructed to keep possession of the place for his majesty's own behoofe; and "that if my Lord Baltimore doth pretend right thereunto by his patent (which is a p239 doubtfull case) you are to say that you only keep possession till his Majesty is informed and satisfyed otherwise."11
To reduce the Dutch, Nicholls had carefully planned the strategy that he outlined in the instruction issued to Carr: He would first make peace with the Swedes and Finns; next he would assure the Dutch farmers and burghers that if they submitted to English rule they would not be harmed and their lands, homes, and possessions would be unmolested. Carr knew that if he could win the support of the citizenry, Governor Alexander d'Hinoyossa, the thirty-five-year-old ranking officer in the City of Amsterdam's colony would be "disarmed of their assistance and left to defend his inconsiderable fort with less than fifty men."12 Actually the garrison at Fort New Amstel, including officers, numbered only thirty, but Carr did not know this until the attack.
The shoals in the Delaware caused Carr's vessels difficulty, as they had arrested Hudson fifty years before, and would block another English invader, Sir William Howe, one hundred years later. Nevertheless, Carr carried out his assignment completely and efficiently. He remained aboard the Guinney during the early phases of the attack on New Amstel, but went ashore in time to commandeer the supplies and material in the fort. The fort, its equipment, weapons, and provisions, as well as the houses, arms, slaves, livestock, and personal possessions owned by the City's officers or soldiers — these were all legitimate spoils of battle belonging to the conqueror. Strictly speaking, all the pillage was the property of the Duke of York, but Sir Robert knew that the Duke had no patent for the west shore of the Delaware. As the commanding officer who had risked his life and the lives of his soldiers and officers in the engagement, he had his own ideas about the disposition of the spoils, as we shall soon see.
A number of versions of the English attack have been published p240 in secondary sources, some les accurate than others, but most are incomplete. The following eyewitness story gives the important details from the Dutch viewpoint. It was discovered by the historian van Laer in the notary records of Amsterdam and translated by him into English:
On this day, the 16th of June, Anno 1665, before me, Hendrick Rosa, notary public, etc., in the presence of witnesses hereinafter named, appeared Godefro Meyer van Cloppenburgh, about 40 years of age, formerly sergeant, Steffen Ottingh van Loo, about 29 years of age, and Jan Janss. van Loo, about 32 years of age, both formerly farm laborers, and all three of them having been in the service of the Hon. Commissaries of the South River in New Netherland, [i.e., commissioners of the city's colony] who, at the request and urging of the said Hon. Commissioners by true words, in place and under proffer of an oath deposed, declared and attested that [the following] is true and well knowº to the deponents.
First, they, Godefro and Jan Janss. van Loo [two of] the deponents jointly [declared] that on [the first day of] the month of October of last year, 1664, towards evening, while they, the deponents were staying at Fort New Amstel on the South River, there came and arrived a large warship of the King of Great Britain, mounted with more than forty guns, accompanied by an English merchant vessel with soldiers, and that immediately three members of the council from the fort [Peter Alrick, Gerritt van Sweringen were two of them and possibly Joost de Lagrange was the third] went on board the English ship to demand of the commander for what purpose these ships had arrived there, as they were not accustomed to see such flags in their country. The admiral or commander [Sir Robert Carr], showing them certain sealed letters from the King of England, said that they had come to take possession of the country for the King, either by agreement or by force, whereupon the said three members of the council returned to the fort and reported the same.
The next day, very early in the morning, the first deponent p241 [Sergeant Godefro Meyer] was sent by their governor, Alexander Innejose, to their gunner, Hans [Block], residing a gun shot's distance from the fort, to order him to roast immediately four chickens and to boil a ham, as the governor and the English commander, each accompanied by four soldiers, but without the presence of other people, were to meet on land, outside the fort, in order to come to an agreement. Accordingly, that morning, at nine o'clock, after one of our four soldiers had fired his gun, the English admiral came ashore and he, the deponent, fired a salute of nine guns from the battery. The governor of the fort and the English admiral, alone, then walked away a short distance from the fort and remained together for about an hour and a half. The English admiral then returned aboard and the governor returned to the fort, where he ordered the deponent to load the pieces with shrapnel and to supply the soldiers with muskets and double [side]arms. The governor also asked all the soldiers whether they were resolved to fight, to which they all said, Yes, as long as they could stand up.13
The next day, about 8 o'clock in the morning, about one hundred and thirty English soldiers from the warship, as well as from the merchant vessel, landed, as they both declare, and marched around the castle to the rear of the farmhouse of the castle. At about three o'clock in the afternoon, some cannon shots were fired from the ship through the roofs of the houses in the fort and the soldiers who were on land climbed over the rear wall, whereupon Schout van Sweringen and Ensign Pieter Alderts, both of whom were of the council, jumped over the walls and began to run and when he, the deponent, asked the governor whether he should fire on the ship, the governor forbade him to do so and ordered him not to shoot. In climbing over the wall of the fort, the English in their fury cut down some of the people and wounded many. Thus, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the fort was taken by the English by storm entirely, and they, the deponents, and all the other people were plundered. They p242 also declare that there was then not a day's ration of bread for the people in the fort.
The two deponents further declare that eight or ten days before the loss of the fort, after word had been built received that the Manades [Manhattan Island] had surrendered to the English, a general muster of the burghers and farmers and those in the fort showed that the burghers and farmers were ninety strong and that in the fort the number of officers and others was thirty.
The deponents also declare that the same afternoon that the two English ships arrived as above stated, the burghers and farmers who were outside the fort agreed with the English and retained their possessions, without being molested by the English in any way.
They also declare that at the time of the surrender of the fort there was so much merchandise in the fort that the first deponent's house was filled with merchandise from top to bottom, so that no more could be stowed in it, including cloth, linen, wine, brandy, Spanish wine, stockings, shoes, shirts, and other goods.
The first deponent further declares that three or four months before the surrender of the fort, the aforesaid Governor Alexander Innejose traded with the English in Maryland Spanish wine, brandy, Rochelle [wine], linen, stockings, shoes, shirts, etc. for tobacco of the best quality, at two stivers a pound, which the English were to deliver at the proper season, and that thus he has sold some hundreds of guilders worth of merchandise to the English, for which as yet no payment has been received.14
The three deponents also declare that they saw in the Virginis, p243 and the last two deponents that they helped loading into the ship of Jan Telly for the afraid Alexander Innejose, fifty-nine elk skins, a chest and a trunk packed with some others and various sorts of peltries and two beggar bags full of raccoons and he, the deponent, Godefro, [declares] that with the aforesaid commander and his family and the carpenter and the secretary he arrived about fourteen days ago with the aforesaid ship and goods at London.15
The deponent, Jan Janss, declares that he arrived from the Virginis in England on the ship Coninck Salomon ["King Solomon"] and that the said Mr. Innejose had some hogsheads of tobacco in her, as he was told by the crew; all three of the deponents declaring also that they heard from the Commander Innejose's own mouth at London that he had some hogsheads of tobacco in the aforesaid ship Coninck Salomon, saying that he must look after them.
The deponent, Steffen Ottingh, declares that he served on the island Bommelerweert16 as foreman of the farmhands when the English with a small vessel with soldiers came up the river and overpowered the inhabitants and that the English plundered and took everything, even the bedding from under the people's bodies, and carried away everything, except what they kept for their own needs. The said deponent arrived in England in the ship of Captain Gilmer and all the deponents together came last Saturday, a week ago, on the Ostend convoy ship from London to Ostend and thence hither. Done at Amsterdam in the presence of Johannes Basse and Johannes Outhuysen, as witnesses.17
Van Sweringen in a later deposition stated that Carr also sent p244 a boat to the Hoerenkil, where the English soldiers pillaged the settlement, including the homes of Plockhoy and his followers (see Chapter 4). Whether the Dutch residents there resisted the invasion, and were punished by having their belongings confiscated, or whether the attackers considered everything there as the property of the City of Amsterdam, and thus legitimate spoils, is not made clear in the deposition. In any event, the Hoerenkil was taken and also fell under the Duke's rule.
The English surrender terms were more generous than the Dutch had reason to expect — the burghers, farmers, and other private citizens at New Amstel, who had cooperated with the attackers, were permitted to retain their homes and personal property. Any Dutchman who did not want to live under English rule was free to depart unharmed within six months; everyone was guaranteed freedom of conscience in church discipline; the Dutch magistrates were allowed to continue in office; all the magistrates and inhabitants, Swedes and Dutch alike, were told they must submit to the King and take an oath of allegiance to "his Majtie of great Brittaine."18 This seemed to impose no hardship on anyone, because there had been no strong loyalties to the deposed Dutch government. As a matter of fact, many of the citizens were doubtless glad to be rid of d'Hinoyossa, who had been a tyrannical, unprincipled administrator primarily interested in his own personal gain.
The plunder that Carr took from the Dutch was itemized as follows in van Sweringen's deposition:
One hundred sheep & thirty or forty horses fifty or sixty cowes and oxen the number of between sixty and seventy negroes, brewhouse, stillhouse, and all materials thereunto belonging, the produce of the land for that yeare, as corne hay &c were likewise seized by Sr Robert Carr for the use of the King and likewise the cargoe that p245 was unsold, and the bills for what was sold. They also got in their custody, being all, to the value so neere as I can now remember of foure thousand pounds sterling, likewise armes and powder and shott in great quantity, foure and twenty great guns were, in the greatest part, transported to New Yorke. The Dutch soldiers were taken prisoners & given to the merchant-man that was there, in recompence of his service, and into Virginia they were transported to be sold, as it was credibly reported by Sir Robert Carrs officers and other persons there living in the town. All sorts of tools for handicraft tradesmen and all plowgeer and other things to cultivate the ground which were in the store in great quantity, as likewise a Saw Mill to saw planke ready to sett up, and nine sea buyes [buoys] with their iron chaines, great quantities of phisicall meanes besides the estate of Governor Debonissa and myself, except some household stuff and a negro I gott away and some other moveables Sr Robert Carr did permit me to sell.19
Sir Robert's account of the engagement is contained in a letter he wrote to Colonel Nicholls from Fort New Amstel, which he now called "Dellawarr Fort." Essentially it tells the same story told by van Sweringen in his deposition. Carr adds that after d'Hinoyossa had refused to surrender
I landed my soldiers on Sonday morning following & comanded ye shipps to fall downe before ye Fort within muskett shott, with directions to fire two broadsides apeace uppon yt Fort, then my soldiers to fall on. Which done, the soldiers neaver stopping untill they stormed ye fort, and soe consequently to plundering: the seamen, p246 noe less given to that sporte, were quickly within, & have gotten good store of booty; so that in such a noise and confusion noe word of comand could be heard for some tyme; but for as many goods as I could preserve, I still keep intire. The loss on our part was none; the Dutch had tenn wounded and 3 killed. The fort is not tenable although 14 gunns, and without a greate charge wch inevitably must be expended here wilbee noe staying, we not being able to keepe itt. Therefore what I have or can gett shalbee layed out upon ye strengthening of the Fort. Wthin these 3 dayes Ensign Stock fell sick soe that I could not send him to you to perticulerise things, but on his recovery I will send him to you, etc.20
Sir Robert was very generous in dividing certain of the booty among the officers on his staff. He gave van Sweringen's house, servants, lands, and personal possessions to Captain John Carr; he rewarded Ensign Stocke, who was promoted to serve as commissary, with Peter Alricks' houses and possessions, including eleven negro slaves.21 He granted Captain Hugh Hyde and Captain Thomas Morley a large tract of land, near the head of the Delaware River, to be known as the Manor of Grimstead.22 This transfer leaves no doubt of Sir Robert's authority; it refers to him as "sole and chiefe commander & disposor of the affayres in behalfe of his Majesty of Great Britaine, of Delaware Bay and Delaware River." Sir Robert kept the richest prize for himself, d'Hinoyossa's estate on the "best and largest island in the South River," i.e., Burlington Island, with its gardens, dykes, houses, cultivated fields, livestock, and servants. D'Hinoyossa had lived there in luxury with his wife and his Holland-born children, Alexander, Johannes, Peter, Maria, Johanna, Christina, and p247 Barbara.23 Among d'Hinoyossa's servants were a number of negro slaves that the city of Amsterdam had shipped over at his request. Carr reshipped all the negroes seized in the attack to Maryland to be sold to the English planters in exchange for "beefe, pork, corne & salt, etc."
Sir Robert did not bother to obtain from his superiors permission for his program of sharing the Dutch wealth. To him the spoils belonged to the victor in a very personal sense! Colonel Nicholls in New York was grieved to learn of Carr's actions, and he reported to his superiors in London that Sir Robert had reportedly said of the loot taken on the Delaware: " 'Tis his owne, being wonn by the sword." In the same report, Nicholls added:
I cannot but looke upon it as a great presumption in Sr Robert Carr who acted there, or at least ought to have done, as a private Captain to assume to himself the power not onely of appropriating the prize to himselfe, but of disposing the confiscations of houses farms and stock to whom he doth thinke fitt.24
Nicholls was so annoyed with Carr's actions that he added that he intended to go to Delaware to take charge and dispose of the plunder for his majesty's service, "and not for private uses." A few days earlier he had said he would send Captain Robert Needham to command there, but on October 24, 1664, a commission was drawn up and signed by two of the commissioners, ordering Nicholls to go to Delaware and take charge.25 The records do not clearly state that he went to Delaware — if so, he did not take charge, for Carr remained there as the ranking English officer until February of the following year. Nicholls' communications reflected his doubt about the Duke's authority on the Delaware, p248 and he usually referred to his taking certain action on a tentative basis only, pend used to the King's orders.
Later, Nicholls was persuaded that Carr, despite his private interests, had rendered meritorious service in his country's interests. On April 10, 1666, he wrote the Earl of Arlington, then Secretary of State, requesting that confirmation be given to Carr and his officers for their land acquisitions on the Delaware, which they had already possessed for almost two years!26
Sir Robert evidently enjoyed his role of conqueror on the Delaware — as well as the personal satisfaction and luxury of living on d'Hinoyossa's island estate. Carr ignored orders signed by Nicholls and the other commissioners that he return promptly to New York. His original instructions had empowered him to keep possession in the King's name and to exercise his own discretion in so doing.27 As he saw it, duty, as well as his personal interests, called on him to remain! Since Carr's authority was equal to that of the other two commissioners, who had not even participated in the engagement on the Delaware, he probably felt that he alone had the right to make the decisions there. Some of the English soldiers in Carr's forces, as well as those who followed during the next few years, liked it so well on the Delaware that they remained, too, and were given lands for their service. Among these were Charles Floyd, John Henry, William Tom, John Ogle, Thomas Wollaston, James Crawford, John Askus, and others.
On January 16 (more than three months after the attack) George Cartwright, one of the commissioners, wrote from Boston,
. . . Mr. Maverick and my selfe have had nothing to doe but observe His Majesties commands in visiting the English colonies; p249 but we have not had power to doe anything; for together he and I cannot act without a third man though each of us single may act with Colonell Nicholls: but he is detained at New York with the affaires of his government, and Sir Robert Carre cannot be perswaded to leave Delaware as yet. And if they should not be spared from their governments, the next spring (wch I fear they cannot) we shall be in a great straight. . . . I have neither credit here to take up money nor an estate in England to pay it with.28
Nicholls finally prevailed upon Sir Robert to return to New York and pursue his duties as commissioner elsewhere in the colony, where there was work to be done in the Duke's interests, and on February 4, 1665, Carr arrived in Boston. In the fall of the same year he was still in Boston, complaining of a leg injury he had received on the Delaware which prevented his wearing a boot. In December, he wrote bitterly, "That little which I had gotten at Delaware, & for which I had hazarded my life, I am told is given away, and one is now come to take possession of it. Wherefore I humbly pray you [the Secretary of State] to assist my sonne that I may have this land above mentioned, granted to me by patent."29 The land to which he referred was a tract on the Sagatucket River in the Narraganset country that he desired to settle on.
Commissioner Samuel Mavericke also had his own cause for complaint. He wrote that he had "not one farthing worth of all the plunder taken at Delawar it was worthy they say about Ten p250 thousand pounds, but how squandered away or to whom given we know not, a runagot seruant of his confessed he had 400. I mean Sr Robt Carr, he heares he is not to haue the gouermt of Delawarr and therefore new moues the Inhabitants of the prouince of Mayne to petition that he may be Governor ouer them he indeavors to bee very popular . . . ."30
The following year Carr returned to New York, where he was taken ill, and a letter written October 24, 1666, reported that he had been abed for ten weeks. The nature of his illness was described thus: "got in his travills to Delaware & Maryland a Feavor, & Ague."31
Possibly Sir Robert returned for a while to the Delaware following his sickness in New York, as intimated by Fiske, but this is not a certainty.32 The Delaware was certainly no longer under his jurisdiction; indeed, on April 9, 1666, Nicholls had written to Lord Arlington, "After a long expectation of His Maties further directions towards the settlement of Delaware River for which I heare not of any patent yet granted, till wch time it must and hath remained under my care and to my great charge, etc."33
Sometime in 1667, Sir Robert Carr departed from Boston for England, but upon the vessel's arrival he "dyed in Bristoll and never got to London."34 Any claim that Sir Robert had to property on the Delaware evidently died with him. After his return to England, Captain John Carr, who remained at New Castle with the occupation forces, released Carr's Island (Burlington Island) to Peter Alricks (see Chapter 3). Later the island was repossessed by the English authorities.
On April 21, 1668, there was issued to Captain John Carr p251 "Resolutions and Directions for the Settlement of the Government in Delaware," authorizing him, as Sir Robert's successor, to command the English army of occupation (about twenty soldiers), and to become head of a governing council composed of Dutch and Swedish civil magistrates.35
The successful attack by Sir Robert Carr was the culmination of Dutch-English rivalry for possession of the Delaware Valley that had begun many years before and had seen a succession of English failures. The English threat had annoyed the Dutch, but with the assistance of the Swedes they thwarted the English when settlement attempts were made by those from New Haven, Virginia, and Massachusetts Bay. The Dutch did not allow this rivalry to become a blood battle; it was a fencing match, to use Pomfret's analogy, that did not draw blood. Pomfret also suggested that neither Holland nor England wanted to risk straining relations while Spain presented a common danger.36 There can be no question that European politics had an important influence on Dutch and English relations in America. Under Charles I the English had entered an alliance with the Dutch, and the quarrel between Charles I and his Parliament absorbed attention; small heed was paid to Dutch activity in New Netherland until the times of Charles II. When the common enemy, Spain, lost her power, the commercial rivalry between England and the United Netherlands became keener than before; the war between them broke the friendly ties and each nation aggressively pursued its own national interests.
Although Dutch power had ended in America, New Castle, an England name given to New Amstel, remained predominantly Dutch in character for a number of years. George Fox, visiting p252 seven years after the English had assumed authority, wrote in his journal, "The Town we went to was a Dutch Town, called New Castle."37 Some of the Dutch officers were reappointed during the English administration, but as time went on English laws and mores were gradually introduced. The brief period — from August 8, 1673, to February 19, 1674 — when the Dutch were again in control made no important or lasting difference in the sweep of social and economic history on the Delaware.38 Under the Treaty of Westminster, English rule soon returned and continued until the dawn of the American Revolution.
Prior to the English period, which started with Carr's attack in 1664, land on the eastern (present-day New Jersey) side of the Delaware had only been sparsely settled. After the abandonment of Fort Nassau, neither the Company nor the City of Amsterdam paid much attention to that side of the river. On June 24, 1664, four months before Carr's attack, the Duke of York presented this territory (which was to be called West New Jersey) to Sir John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. The Indian inhabitants in the West New Jersey territory had become very unfriendly toward the English. When Sir Robert Carr arrived at New Amstel he wrote Nicholls that these Indians living on the eastern bank of p253 the river were then so strong that "noe Christian yett dare venter [venture] to plant on that side."39 This was slightly exaggerated because a few scattered farmers, mostly Swedes and Finns, were living there. However, no organized colonization effort took place until later when the Quaker, John Fenwick, purchased Berkeley's interest and brought a contingent of settlers from England. This is still another phase of the English activity on the Delaware that remains to be fully told.
To understand why the Dutch colonization effort in the Delaware Valley failed, it is important to remember that in the seventeenth century commercial interests dominated the United Netherlands. Not rich in natural resources, the country had prospered through commerce. Her fleets of armed merchant vessels sailed the known trade routes in the seven seas and laid out new ones to lands discovered by Dutch navigators. The woolens of Friesland, lace and linens of Holland, pottery, tile, Delftware, cheese, and other commodities were exported from the busy with towns and cities of the low countries. Vessels, both large and small, anchored in the Dutch seaports to unload their cargoes of lumber, silks, furs, spices, wines, whale oil, other merchandise from Surinam and Curaçao, Greenland, South Africa, and the East Indies, as well as from North America. These imports were not all consumed by the people of the Netherlands — large quantities were sold and reshipped to neighboring European countries. Hundreds of persons were employed on the quays and in the warehouses and counting houses of the merchants in whose offices decisions were made that affected not only international trade but the economic and political life of Europe.
Although Holland was well populated, her cities and towns were not overcrowded. Her industrious people had rehabilitated the lands that had been under water with an intricate p254 system of dikes and canals to form polderlands. It was an accomplishment in hydraulic engineering for the benefit of agriculture and commerce unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The dikes were also of military importance; they could be opened and a sea unleashed against an attacker. The country was known for political and religious freedom as well as for social toleration. There were few titles of nobility and no king or queen. They had come into existence a solid and content middle class of burghers having an attachment to the fatherland, and lacking motivation to leave their comfortable homes in a prosperous economy to settle distant lands. A successful colonizing effect usually requires a group of people with a common interest in escaping the social, religious, or political pressures and willing to endure hardship to found new settlements and wrest a living from the soil. The usual causes of such group migration — overcrowding, soil exhaustion, food shortage, religious or political persecution — did not prevail in this era when Holland ranked highest among the great mercantile nations.
The reader has seen how the successive trials by the Dutch to recolonize the Delaware between 1623 and 1651 had all ended in failure. The final attempt at New Amstel, although of larger proportions and having greater support than the earlier ones, was also doomed for the same reasons that caused the others to fail. The sponsors were so beset with commercial interests and so eager for financial gain that colonization as an extension of Dutch life to the Delaware Valley was never their aim. They carefully weighed expenditures against probable returns, a sound principle of trade, but an unrealistic approach to the initial problems of colonization. The settlers were town dwellers, traders, and tradesmen, not tillers of the soil, and therefore lacking in disposition and experience an interest in agriculture so necessary to permit a growing colony to feed itself.
Divided opinions developed among the directors and stockholders p255 of the West India Company — as well as among the burgomasters of Amsterdam — which led to misunderstanding, petty bickering, and open animosity. This was accompanied by errors of judgment, confusion, and mismanagement which further blighted efforts to make even a commercial settlement a success, whether under the auspices of the Company, the patroons, or the City. When New Netherland changed allegiance, the entire population was not more than ten thousand, according to Colenbrander, in contrast to an English population of about one hundred thousand in New England, Maryland, and Virginia.40 Yet the Dutch were usefully entitled to whatever credit a nation can claim for exploring, first settling, and first exploiting the resources of the Delaware Valley. Their presence along this waterway before English and Swedish settlers appeared on the scene, casual though it was, gave them the right to have their people, their arts, and their industries transplanted to the New World. History, so full of paradoxes, would not have it so, and the Dutch lost their opportunity, with the result that the English wave swept westward across the Atlantic, engulfed them, and eventually all that remained was a dim memory of their failures.
1 Maryland Archives, 3:365; Fendall had earlier warned Alricks to leave (NYCD, 2:67).
2 NYCD, 12: 252, 262.
3 Narratives, Hall, p314; NYCD, 12:259.
4 Maryland Archives, 3:370.
5 Narratives, Hall, p331.
6 PA, 2nd Series, 5:399.
7 Maryland Archives, 3:426.
8 Ibid., p427.
9 NYCD, 12:458.
10 PA, 2nd Series, 5:576, 580.
11 NYCD, 12:457‑458.
12 PA, 2nd Series, 5:569.
13 Of his conference with d'Hinoyossa the day before the battle, Carr wrote that d'Hinoyossa refused to accept his proposition for surrender (ibid., p577).
14 D'Hinoyossa had been trading merchandise belonging to the City of Amsterdam in his own interests. See the reference below to his taking delivery of Maryland tobacco in London. Beeckman had written prior to the attack that although trade in peltries and tobacco was reserved for the City of Amsterdam, d'Hinoyossa was taking one-half of it (NYCD, 12:450). He also accused d'Hinoyossa of selling the City's millstones for one-thousand pounds of tobacco and a brew kettle for seven-hundred to eight-hundred pounds (ibid., pp375, 379). In 1662, van Sweringen went to Maryland, "to collect tobacco belonging to both of them which they bartered for the City's millstones, the galiot and other City property" (ibid., p422).
15 In an undated letter written from Thomas Howell's home in St. Mary's (present-day Annapolis) d'Hinoyossa asked Nicholls to restore his Delaware estate, which Carr had seized. He indicated he would remain in Maryland for two or three months and would then go to England. The above deposition indicates that d'Hinoyossa arrived in London early in June of 1665 (PA, 2nd Series, 5:587). He returned to America from England, and he, his wife and children became naturalized citizens of Maryland in 1671 (Maryland Archives, 2:282).
16 This appears to be another name for d'Hinoyossa's Island (Burlington Island).
17 The above deposition is given in Iconography, 6:19.
18 NYCD, 3:71.
19 Ibid., pp345‑346. Van Sweringen removed to Maryland after the attack and in 1669 he, his wife, Barbara, and his children, Elizabeth and Zacharias (both born at New Amstel) were naturalized as citizens of Maryland (Maryland Archives, 2:205). Van Sweringen had arrived in New Amstel on the vessel de Purmerlander Kerck February 3, 1662, (NYCD, 12:360). Since he was in office there for only two years, his children must have been born between the time of his arrival and the English attack in 1664. For names of other passengers of the vessel, see A. R. Dunlap, "Three Lists of Passengers to New Amstel," Del. History, 8 (March, 1959), 310‑311.
20 PA, 2nd Series, 5:577.
21 Ibid., p602. An Island seven miles below New Castle, owned by Peter Alricks, was given to William Tom, a member of the expedition (DYR, p26).
22 Ibid., p575.
23 Maryland Archives, 2:282.
24 PA, 2nd Series, 5:569.
25 Ibid., p579. Van Sweringen stated several years later that he was informed Nicholls had gone to Delaware "being on the way for Maryland" (NYCD, 3:346).
26 PA, 2nd Series, 5:599‑600.
27 See his instructions, NYCD, 12:458. V. H. Paltsits called Carr an "impecunious royalist knight" ("The Transition from Dutch to English Rule, 1664‑1691," History of the State of New York, ed. A. C. Flick, vol. 2, Columbia University Press, 1933).
28 PA, 2nd Series, 5:598. Nicholls himself complained that he, too, was "utterly ruin'd in my small estate and credit," and that the other commissioners had neither money nor credit (ibid., p599).
29 NYCD, 3:110. This quotation is O'Callaghan's authority for indicating in the Index of the NYCD (see 11:120) that Captain John Carr was a son of Sir Robert; the present authors have failed to find evidence to support this assumption. Gabriel Thomas, writing in 1698, said that Sir Robert was a cousin of Captain John Carr (Narratives, Myers, p316). Myers, without giving authority for his statement, said that the two men were brothers, not cousins (ibid., fn. 6). The relationship is still in doubt.
30 Colls. N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2:81 (1869).
31 Ibid., pp125‑126, 128.
32 John Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, 1903, 2:11.
33 NYCD, 3:113.
34 Ibid., p161.
35 Ibid., 12:461‑462.
36 John E. Pomfret, The Province of West New Jersey, 1609‑1702, Princeton University Press, p11. Fiske (op. cit., p105) had earlier made the same observation.
37 Narratives, Hall, p395.
38 In the New Netherland Papers, New York Public Library, there is a folder containing Dutch MSS relating to the Dutch recapture, with translations by Paltsits, which have not been published. Among these are two sets of secret instructions, cipher code, and the names of English vessels taken or burnt. The following extract from the Register of Secret Resolutions of the States General on October 25, 1673, explains why so little has been written about this interlude:
". . . that the Lords of said Board of Admiralty at Amsterdam had received confirmation about the recovery of New Netherland, but that unfortunately all letters had been lost, on account of the capture of the little vessel, sent by Capts. Binckes [Jacob Benckes] and Evertsz [Cornelis Evertsen] to convey the news; in obedience to orders the Pilot had thrown [said letters] overboard; consequently their honors were entirely in the dark . . ."
Benckes and Evertsen appointed Anthony Colve as "Governor-General" (William Smith, History of New York, Albany, 1814, p59; also NYCD, 2:569, 609).
39 PA, 2nd Series, 5:578.
40 H. T. Colenbrander, "The Dutch Element in American History," Annual Report, 1909, American Historical Association, Washington, 1911, pp193‑201.
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