I9I2.] BALCH— SOME FORMER MEMBERS. 597 



thing that was to be known in his day. His natural genius as a 

 born miHtary leader of men and able diplomatist was enhanced by 

 vast learning. His scholarship, far from proving a detriment, aided 

 him in that marvelous war that, with slender means, he waged against 

 the Romans and their great resources, a war known to the latter as 

 the war against Hannibal. Another active man of affairs who re- 

 joiced in a broad education, was the Scandinavian warrior-statesman- 

 king, surnamed the " Lion of the North and Defender of the Faith," 

 Gustavus n. Adolphus of Sweden.-- Other men of wide and di- 



^ Pennsylvania has especial interest in Gustavus Adolphus. For when 

 William Usselinx found that he could not persuade the states general of his 

 native Holland to take hold of his scheme for a Dutch trading and colonizing 

 company in the New World, he turned with reluctance in 1624, to Sweden for 

 aid. At Goteborg in October or November of 1624, Gustavus Adolphus 

 granted him a six hours' interview to unfold his plans. On November 4, 

 Usselinx had the draft charter of the proposed company ready; then the 

 general prospectus of the proposed company was issued; and on December 21, 

 1624, the Swedish king gave " commission to William Usselinx to establish a 

 General Trading Company for Asia, Africa, America and Magellanica." 

 Finally, on June 6, 1626, King Gustavus Adolphus signed the charter of the 

 South Company, to carry on trade beyond the seas and to colonize. It was the 

 first forerunner of that later Swedish Company in whose service Lieutenant 

 Colonel John Printz, subsequently starting from Goteborg with the two 

 vessels, the Fama and the Szvan, crossed the Atlantic in 1642, to become the 

 fourth governor of New Sweden. Printz, like his three Swedish predecessors, 

 landed at Fort Christina, the site of modern Wilmington in the present state 

 of Delaware. But before the Swedish governors began to rule in the terri- 

 tory of the colony of Delaware, a Dutch settlement was started near the 

 mouth of Delaware Bay, at Swanendael, and lasted for a few months, until 

 all its members were killed by the Indians. In 1643, the year after Governor 

 Printz had started from Sweden to cross the Atlantic Ocean to New Sweden, 

 and had established himself at Fort Christina, he moved his seat of govern- 

 ment from the territory subsequently called Delaware, to Great Tinicum 

 Island (Tenakon as the Indians called it), a part of what is now Pennsyl- 

 vania. And so Printz was the first man to represent in his own person a 

 European sovereign, who established a seat of government in the territory of 

 what is now the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Thus Pennsylvania looks 

 for the beginning of her sovereignty to Queen Christina of Sweden and her 

 chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, and through them to Gustavus Adolphus. The 

 thirteen colonies that sprang from three northern nations of Europe — England, 

 Holland and Sweden, — and founded the United States of America, can look 

 back to three historic figures, — Elizabeth of England, Father William of the 

 Netherlands, and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, all three worthy prototypes 

 of our own national father, Washington. 



