CHAPTER XIV

DUTCH AND   SWEDES  ON THE   DELAWARE  RIVER

After the failure of the Swaanendael venture
of 1630, although no permanent Dutch settlement
was made by the Dutch on the South River before
1640, their fur-traders were busy on the Delaware
and Schuylkill rivers, and in that region, until an
invasion, as they considered it, on a large scale,
from Sweden, called forth first their diplomacy,
and then force.

Usselinx saw the Swedish West India Company
chartered as early as 1626. This was the year that
the Princess Christina (whose name ought to be
that of the State of Delaware) was born; but
absorbed in the work of securing freedom of con¬
science, Gustavus Adolphus had to postpone the
work of building up a New Sweden in America.
Dying on the field of Lutzen, he left his darling
project of a colony in America, " the jewel of his
kingdom," to his daughter, then a little girl of
eleven, of masculine education. Right royally
did Queen Christina attempt to carry out her
father's wish. Calling to her aid Peter Minuit,
she bade him go and occupy the deserted Dela¬
ware region, dispatching him late in 1637 with
two ships and fifty colonists to found New Sweden.