1635.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 19 



parties. With the view of terminating these unpleasant quarrels, 

 anil it may have been partly on ])olitical considerations, the 

 Directors of the company were authorized by the Assembly of 

 XIX of the States General, to repurchase patroonships. 



Under this authority, the patroon owners of Swanendael on 

 the 7th of February, 1035, retransferred all their right, title and 

 interest in their lands on both sides of the bay, to the West 

 India Company for the sura of 15,000 guilders, (§6,240.)' All 

 charters, maps and papers concerning the aforesaid colonies, 

 were to be delivered over to the purchasers. This transaction 

 was well calculated to put an end to private enterprise on the 

 Delaware river on Dutch account, and probably had that effect. 



The British government never having recognized the claims of 

 the Dutch to any part of North America, a party from the 

 English colony on the Connecticut river, consisting of George 

 Holmes, his hired man Thomas Hall, and about a dozen others, 

 attempted to effect a settlement on the Delaware in 1635. Hall 

 deserted his master, and the others, failing in an attack upon 

 Fort Nassau, were captured by the garrison and sent to Manhat- 

 tan.- These Englishmen were not punished, but were permitted 

 to settle in the vicinity of Fort Amsterdam, and are said to be 

 the first English settlers among the Dutch on Manhattan. This 

 Thomas Hall became a man of some distinction, as his name fre- 

 quently appears in the Dutch records. 



Although this attack on the Dutch fort was unsuccessful, the 

 fact that it was made by so small a party, is evidence of the 

 weakness of the garrison, and of the small establishment kept on 

 the Delaware by the company at this time, to protect its trade ; 

 nor is there any evidence that this force was kept there perma- 

 nently. 



Up to this period, there is no reliable evidence that the Dutch 

 had effected any permanent settlement on the Delaware ; and 

 unless the unfortunate colonists at Swanendael be an exception, 

 no one had adopted its shores as his home for life, or as an 

 abiding place for his posterity. From the period of the foray of 

 Holmes and his Englishmen, till about the time of the arrival of 

 the Swedes in 1638, the doings of the Dutch on our river, remain 

 very much in the dark, for the want of authentic documents on 

 the subject, during that period. 



A report,^ made to the States General in April of that year, 

 "on the condition of the colony of New Netherland," furnishes 

 rather conclusive evidence that nothing of the kind had been at- 



1 Hist. New Netherland i. 365. For a translation of the deed, ib. Appendix S. 

 « DeVries in N. Y. Hist. Col. N. S. iii. 76 ; Hist. New Netherland i. 170 ; N. Y. Col. 

 Doc. i. 4.n. 

 3 N. Y. Col. Doc. i. 100. 



