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the surrender, they did not much exceed seven hundred
souls.
Free from ambition, ignorant of the ideas which were convulsing the
English mind, it was only as Protestants that they shared the impulse of the age. They cherished the calm earnestness of religious feeling; they reverenced the bonds of family and the purity of morals; their children, under every disadvantage of want of teachers and of
Swedish books, were well instructed.
With the natives they preserved peace A love for
Sweden, their dear mother country, the abiding sentiment of loyalty towards its sovereign, continued to distinguish the little band; at
Stockholm, they remained for a century the objects of a disinterested and generous regard; affection united them in the New World; and a part of their descendants still preserve their altar and their dwellings round the graves of their fathers.
1
The conquest of the Swedish settlements was fol-
lowed by relations bearing a near analogy to the provincial system of
Rome.
The West India Company desired an ally on its southern frontier; the country above
Christiana was governed by
Stuyvesant's deputy; while the city of
Amsterdam became, by purchase, the
proprietary of
Delaware, from the
Brandywine to Bombay Hook; and afterwards, under cessions from the natives, extended its jurisdiction to
Cape Henlopen.
But
did a city ever govern a province with forbearance?
The
noble and right honorable lords, the burgomasters of
Amsterdam, instituted a paralyzing commercial monopoly, and required of the colonists an oath of absolute obedience to all their past or future commands.
But
Maryland was free;
Virginia governed itself.
The
