30 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUXTT. [1643. 



the crown of Sweden." From the necessity of the case, it was 

 not possible to give " perfect and detailed instructions," but much 

 was left to the discretion of the Governor. Great offenders might 

 be punished " with imprisonment and other proportionate punish- 

 ments, and even with death," but not otherwise " than according 

 to the ordinances and legal forms, and after having sufficiently 

 considered and examined the affair with the most noted persons, 

 such as the most prudent assessors of justice that he can find and 

 consult in the country." 



The Dutch Colonists, sent over two years before and settled 

 below Fort Christina, were to be permitted to exercise the re- 

 formed religion — ^all others were to be subject to the Augsburg 

 Confession, and the ceremonies of the Swedish church. Thus it 

 will be seen that the settlement of our County commenced with 

 an established religion, though it cannot be said that conformity 

 to it was ever rigorously exacted. 



As has been mentioned, the Swedes based their claim to the 

 country wholly upon their purchases made from the Indians, 

 followed by occupation. The extent of that claim is estimated 

 at thirty German miles in length — its Avidth in the interior, as 

 had been stipulated and decreed in the contracts with the savages, 

 "that the subjects of her Majesty and the members of the Navi- 

 gation Company, might take up as much land as they wished." 



The Swedish Dutch Colony is referred to in the instructions 

 to Printz, as subject immediately to Commander Jost De Bogardt, 

 but the Governor is enjoined to see that the stipulated conditions 

 under which the settlement was made, are complied with, and 

 their removal to a greater distance from Fort Christina is sug- 

 gested. 



Previous to the issuing of these instructions to Governor 

 Printz, the two vessels the Stoork and the Renown which were 

 to bear him and his fellow adventurers to New Sweden, had 

 sailed from Stockholm for Gottenburg to complete their equip- 

 ments. According to the Rev. John Campanius,^ who accom- 

 panied the expedition, they sailed from Gottenburg on the 1st 

 of November, 1G-A2, and after a tedious voyage by the way of 

 Antigua, arrived at Fort Christina on the 15th of February, 

 1643, having experienced a severe snowstorm off the Hooern kill, 

 from which one of the vessels sustained great damage. 



The energetic character of the new Governor is abundantl}-^ 

 evinced during his administration ; and could his acts always 

 have been tempered by prudence, his success would have been 

 greater. The expedition under his command was the most form- 

 idable that had entered the Delaware, and it required him but a 

 very short time to give the Swedish establishment on the river a 

 very imposing aspect. 



' Cainpanius, 70. 



