ts, who took steady ground for peace
and opposed hostile measures. In doing so, however, she went the whole
length of nullification and almost broke up the confederacy. William
Kieft, the governor of New Netherland (1637-1647), seemed to recognize
at once the significance of the confederacy as well as the importance
of making friends with Massachusetts; and in July, 1643, before the
commissioners had time to hold their first meeting, he wrote a letter
of congratulations to Governor Winthrop, which he loaded, however,
with complaints against Connecticut for intruding upon the land of the
Dutch fort at Hartford. Governor Winthrop in reply assured Kieft that
the influence of Massachusetts would be on the side of peace, for that
"the ground of difference being only a small parcel of land" was a
matter of too small value to cause a breach between two people so
nearly related as the Dutch and English.

When the federal commissioners met in September they showed a hostile
spirit, and addressed vehement letters to the Swedish and Dutch on
account of their "foul injuries" offered the New Haven settlers on the
Delaware. In March, 1644, letters came from the Swedes and Dutch full
of expressions of regard for the English and "particularly for
Massachusetts." They promised to refrain from interfering with
visitors who should bring authority from the commissioners, which so
encouraged some Boston merchants that they sent to the Delaware a
pinnace to search for a great lake reported to be its source. But when
they arrived at the Delaware, the Swedish and Dutch governors, while
telling the captain that he might go up the river as far as he chose,
prohibited him from any trafficking with the Indians, which caused the
return of the pinnace to Boston. After this the war which Kieft
provoked with the Indians so occupied the Dutch that for two years
they had no time to give attention to their English neighbors. So hard
pressed were they that, instead of making further reclamations on New
Haven, they earnestly but unsuccessfully solicited her aid. After
great losses to both the Dutch and the Indians the Mohawks intervened
as arbitrators, and brought about a peace in September, 1645.[21]

In 1646 the men of New Haven set up a trading-house near the mouth of
the Housatonic, and thereupon Kieft wrote to the commissioners, who
met at New Haven in April, 1646, a blustering letter of which the
following is a good sample: "We protest against all y