Wales, and himself, with some eighty others, were lost. The general opinion was, if we may credit Winthrop, that this calamity was a mark of divine displeasure against such as had opposed or injured God's "poor people of New England,"—so prone are men to pronounce harsh and uncharitable judgments respecting calamities which it pleases God to send upon individuals.
On Stuyvesant's assuming the government, in May, 1647, the colony was far from being in a prosperous condition, as compared with Virginia and Maryland on the south, and New England on the north. The former numbered some twenty thousand inhabitants, and New England about as many; while New Netherland had hardly three thousand, including the Swedes on the Delaware. Beverswyck—the site of the present city of Albany—was a hamlet of ten houses; New Amsterdam was a village of wooden huts, with roofs of straw, and chimneys of mud and sticks, and a large proportion of rum-shops, and shops for the sale of tobacco and beer. On the western end of Long Island there were several plantations, but a considerable part of the inhabitants were English.
The United Colonies of New England sent to Stuyvesant a congratulatory letter on his arrival, but wound up with numerous complaints. The old soldier had been charged with the settling these disputes and differences, if possible, and he accordingly undertook with vigor to accomplish the difficult task. Matters did not advance rapidly or easily; and it was not till September, 1650, that any award was effected by the arbitrators appointed by the respective litigants in the case. "By their award, all tho eastern part of Long Island, composing the present county of Suffolk, was assigned to New England. The boundary between New Haven and New Netherland was to begin at Greenwich Bay, to run northerly twenty miles into the country, and beyond 'as it shall be agreed,' but nowhere to approach the Hudson nearer than ten miles. The Dutch retained their fort of Good Hope, with the lands appertaining to it; but all the rest of the territory on the river was assigned to Connecticut. Fugitives were to be mutually given up."[1]
Adventurers from New Haven undertook a fresh expedition to the Delaware, the question respecting which had unfortunately been left unsettled. Stuyvesant resisted this attempt instantly, seized upon the ship, detained the emigrants, and proceeded to build a fort—Fort Casimir—on the present site of Newcastle. This energetic conduct was denounced at New Haven as a violation of the late treaty, and fresh troubles sprang up in consequence. It was even contemplated to attempt the conquest of New Netherland, especially as at the time war had broken out between Cromwell and the Dutch, and inasmuch as it was alleged that there was a plot between the Dutch and the Narragansetts to murder the entire body of English colonists. Massachusetts refusing to join
- ↑ Hildreth's "History of the United States," vol. i. p. 438.
