which there is also a Dutch settlement,(2)
but the Swedes have one at its mouth extremely well supplied with
cannons and men.(3) It is believed that these Swedes are maintained
by some Amsterdam merchants, who are not satisfied that the West India
Company should alone enjoy all the commerce of these parts.(4) It is
near this river that a gold mine is reported to have been found.

(1) Connecticut.

(2) Fort Nassau, at the mouth of Timber Creek.

(3) He probably means Fort Nya Elfsborg, on the Jersey side
of Delaware Bay, below Salem.

(4) The reference is to aid rendered by Samuel Blommaert, an
Amsterdam merchant, formerly a director of the Dutch West
India Company, in fitting out the first Swedish expedition
in 1637, and in engaging Peter Minuit to command it.
Blommaert's letters to the Swedish chancellor, Count Axel
Oxenstjerna, thirty-eight in number, 1635-1641, letters of
great importance to the history of New Sweden, have just
been published in the _Bijdragen en Mededeelingen_ of the
Utrecht Historical Society, vol. XXIX.

See in the work of the Sieur de Laet of Antwerp, the table and chapter
on New Belgium, as he sometimes calls it, or the map "Nova Anglia, Novu
Belgium et Virginia."(1)

(1) De Laet, _Histoire du Nouveau Monde_, table of contents,
bk. III. ch. XII., and map.

It is about fifty years since the Hollanders came to these parts.(1) The
fort was begun in the year 1615; they began to settle about twenty years
ago, and there is already some little commerce with Virginia and New
England.

(1) An exaggeration. There is no evidence of Dutch visits
before Hudson's.

The first comers found lands fit for use, deserted by the savages, who
formerly had fields here. Those who came later have cleared the woods,
which are mostly oak. The soil is good. Deer hunting is abundant in the
fall. There are some houses built of stone; lime they make of oyster
shells, great heaps of which are found here, made formerly by the
savages, who subsist in part by that fishery.

The climate is very mild. Lying at 40 2/3 degrees there are many
European fruits, as apples, pears, cherries. I reached there in October,
and found even then a considerable quantity of peaches.

Ascending the river to the 43d degree, you meet the second [Dutch]
settlement, which the tide reaches but does not pass. Ships of a hundred
and a hundred and twenty ton