the very site of Manhattan.[20] In April, 1633, Jacob Eelkens, in
command of an English vessel, forced his way past Fort Amsterdam, on
Manhattan Island, and traded with the Indians, until the incompetent
Van Twiller at length stripped him of his goods and drove him from the
river.[21] The same year Van Twiller, as we have seen, planted a fort
near the site of the present city of Hartford, which served as the
seed of future troubles.

In 1634 Captain Thomas Young visited the Delaware and lorded it over
the Dutch vessels which he found in the river.[22] Then in 1635, while
settlers from Massachusetts poured into Connecticut, and the Council
for New England, preliminary to its dissolution, assigned Long Island,
despite the Dutch claim, to Sir William Alexander, men came from
Virginia to Delaware Bay and seized Fort Nassau, then abandoned by the
Dutch; but Van Twiller soon drove them away.[23] Thus step by step
English progress encroached upon the territories of the Dutch.

In 1638 Van Twiller was recalled and William Kieft was sent over. He
had to deal with Swedes as well as English, for in 1626 King Gustavus
Adolphus was persuaded by Usselinx, an Amsterdam merchant, to form the
Swedish West India Company, and after his death Oxenstierna, his
prime-minister, renewed the scheme. In 1638 he sent out a Swedish
expedition under Peter Minuit, the late governor of New Netherland,
who established a fort on the Delaware near the present Wilmington,
and called it "Christina," and the Swedes paid no attention to the
protest of Governor Kieft.[24]

In 1640 a party of English settlers from New Haven obtained deeds to
the soil on Long Island from Farrett, agent of Sir William Alexander,
and settled at Southold; and another party from Massachusetts, more
daring still, settled at Schouts Bay, almost opposite to Manhattan.
When a force of Dutch troops was sent against them they retired to the
east end of the island and settled Southampton. A more adventuresome
proceeding was attempted in 1641 when another party from New Haven
took the Dutch in the flank by settling on the Delaware. Dutch and
Swedes united to drive the intruders away. As if these were not
troubles enough, Kieft, in 1642, provoked war with the Indians all
along the Hudson.

[Footnote 1: Brown, _Genesis of the United States_, I., 8.]

[Footnote 2: Bourne, _Spain in America_, chap. x.]

[Footnote 3: _Cal. of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp. 75, 85, 98.]

[Footnote