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wasions to ye contrary, were soon our frinds." Carr then summoned the fort to surrender, and for three days negotiations were had between the opposing forces, which resulted in the magistracy of the place agreeing to surrender the town, a conclusion in which D'Hinoyossa and his soldiers declined to concur. "Whereupon," states Carr, in his official report,1 "I landed my soldiers on Sunday morning following, & comanded ye shipps to fall downe before ye Fort withn muskett shott, wth directions to fire two broadsides apeace upon yt Fort, then my soldiers to fall on. Which done, the soldiers neaver stoping untill they stormed ye fort, and soe consequently to plundering; the seamen, noe less given to that sporte, were quickly wthin, & have gotten good store of booty; so that in such a noise and confusion noe worde of comand could be heard for sometyme; but fo as many goods as I could preserve, I still Keepe 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 wthout a great charge wch unevitably must be expended, here wilbee noe standing, we not being able to keepe itt." We learn from Col. Nicolls' report to the Secretary of State2 that the storming-party was commanded by Lieut. Carr and Ensign Hooke; and, notwithstanding the Dutch fired three volleys at them, not a man in their ranks was wounded in the assault. Sir Robert Carr, it seems, stayed aboard the "Guinea" until the fort was captured, when he landed and claimed that the property in the fort, having been won by the sword, was his and his troops. All the soldiers and many of the citizens of New Amstel were sold as slaves to Virginia by the English conquerors, and most of the negroes belonging to the Dutch settlers were distributed among the captors, as were also one hundred sheep, forty horses, sixty cows and oxen.3 Lands and estates were confiscated, and granted by Sir Robert Carr to his officers, as well as the commanders of the vessels which took part in the expedition to the Delaware. |
1 Ib., 550.
2 Ib., 541. 3 N. Y. Colonial Doc., vol. ii. p. 345; Vincent's Hist. of Del., p. 432. | ||
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When the standard of Great Britain floated from the flag-staffs over the captured Dutch forts on the Hudson and the Delaware it marked the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race on the North American continent, and as authority was then exercised from Maine to Florida, on the Atlantic coast, by a homogeneous people, it made possible the great nation that was born to the world a century later. It was singularly fortunate at this juncture, that the unbridled executive power in the new province was confided to so prudent and able a man as Col. Richard Nicolls proved to be, whose "administration was so wise and impartial that it enforced universal peace."4 On the Delaware the Swedes, who had heretofore been held as a subjugated people, were in every respect benefited by the change, and even the Dutch settlers had reason to be glad that the tyrannical sway of Stuyvesant had ended. In May, 1667, Col. Francis Lovelace succeeded Col. Nicolls, and, as has been said by an able writer, "under Governor Lovelace the work of adjusting the government of the Delaware, so as to bring it slowly but steadily into conformity with English law, progressed systematically year by year, until it received an unexpected check in 1673 by the total, but temporary, suspension of English authority incident to the second conquest of the country by the Dutch."5 |
4 Gordon's "History of Pennsylvania," p. 30.
5 Appendix B, Duke's Book of Laws, p. 447. | ||
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Late in the summer of 1671 the Indians had committed several atrocious murders, and it became necessary for Governor Lovelace to act cautiously but firmly to check further outrages, and to punish the culprits for the crimes already perpetrated. As preliminary to an Indian was he ordered that persons living in the outer settlements should thrash their grain and remove it and the cattle to a place of comparative safety; that no person, on pain of death, should sell powder, shot, or liquor to the savages, as also recommending the strengthening of garrisons and fortifications. Lovelace prudently had a conference with the Governor of New Jersey, to secure, if war should result, the co-operation of that province, since the murderers were said to be under that jurisdiction, and a meeting was held at New York, September 25th, and another at Elizabethtown, N. J., Nov. 7, 1671, when it was determined that it was injudicious at the then late season to begin an offensive movement against the savages, but that several companies of soldiers should be organized on the Delaware; that every man capable of bearing arms (between the ages of sixteen and sixty) should always be provided with powder and bullets fit for service, under a penalty; that block-houses should be erected at several places on the river; and also forbidding the shipment of grain unless a special license should be granted therefor. In the latter part of November the Indian sachems and William Tom, clerk of the court on the Delaware, held a council at Upland, at the house of Peter Rambo, at which the savages promised to bring the murderers to the whites within six days thereafter that they might be punished for their crimes, and if they could not bring them alive they agreed to deliver their dead bodies, as an earnest of their purpose to prevent a war between the races. It afterwards appeared that one of the guilty men escaped from his people, and could not be delivered as promised, but the other was captured. It is stated by Tom6 that the smaller Indian, learning of the purpose of the sachems, went to the other and advised him to flee. The latter said he would go the next morning. Of the two Indians who had been dispatched to take the culprits one was a personal friend, and was loath to kill his captive, but when the latter learned that the sachems had determined he must1 | 6 2.57 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. v. p. 610 | ||