46 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1647. 



ready an ear to his suspicions ; to admit the correctness of his 

 conclusions without some grains of allowance ; or to believe that 

 all the aggressions of which he complains, were without provoca- 

 tion on the part of his people. 



Hudde accuses Governor Printz with conniving at the abuse 

 of the Company's subjects — freemen as well as servants — " when 

 arriving at the place where he resides, ***** go that they are 

 often, on returning home, bloody and bruised," and he seems to 

 attribute similar treatment from the savages to these examples, 

 and particularly a surprise meditated by the Armewsick, savages 

 on the 12th of May, 1647, at noon, which "was rendered void 

 by God's mercy and correct information, and through a misun- 

 derstanding amongst them." He accuses the governor with 

 closing the river, "so that no vessel can enter it on any account, 

 except with his previous consent;" with vilifying their High 

 Mightinesses ; treating as frivolous and insignificant the commis- 

 sions granted by the Director-general, &c.^ 



A petition for indemnity on account of Swedish aggressions, 

 got up in the year 1651, and presented to Governor Stuyvesant, 

 contains the following item : 



" I, the undersigned Symon Root, most humbly request due 

 indemnity for incurred losses and damages ; first for the opposi- 

 tion of the Swedes ofi"ered to my building at Wiggnakoing^ in the 

 year 1647; inasmuch as the throwing down of the Hon''^° Com- 

 pany's arras, and the destruction of the building erected by Com- 

 missary Andries Hudde, rendered it sufficiently apparent, that 

 further occupation there would be prevented by them."-^ 



The Swedish governor is also accused by one John Geraet, of 

 seizing himself and his boat, the Siraen, with force and violence, 

 with handling his goods, and with taking from him three guns 

 and some powder.* 



However unsatisfactory the proceedings of Printz were to the 

 Dutch, they met the hearty approval of his own government. In 

 a letter sent home by him in February of this year, he gave full 

 information " of the nature and actual condition of New Sweden, 

 as also respecting the progress of cultivation and the construction 

 of dwellings in that country." This information was "infinitely 

 agreeable" to her Majesty's government, and although she "had 

 remarked with particular satisfaction the zeal, skill and activity" 

 with which he had filled his station as Oommander, (for so he is 

 styled in the letter,) and gave him assurances that "his zealous 

 and faitliful services" should be held in remembrance and re- 

 warded with all her royal favor, yet she declined for the present 

 to confer on him "certain lands and occupations" for which he 



1 Hudde's Report. 436. ^ jjow Wicacco in Philadelphia. 



3 N. Y. Col. Doc. i. 694. * lb. 



