The
Swedish court, nobles, and people, all became enthusiastic about
the project which he elaborated for a great commercial company to
trade and colonize in Asia, Africa, and America.* But the plan
was dropped because, soon after 1630, Gustavus Adolphus led his
country to intervene on the side of the Protestants in the Thirty
Years' War in Germany, where he was killed three years later at
the battle of Lutzen. But the desire aroused by Usselinx for a
Swedish colonial empire was revived in the reign of his infant
daughter, Christina, by the celebrated Swedish Chancellor,
Oxenstierna.
* See "Willem Usselinx," by J. F. Jameson in the "Papers of the
American Historical Association," vol. II.
An expedition, which actually reached the Delaware in 1638, was
sent out under another Dutch renegade, Peter Minuit, who had been
Governor of New Netherland and after being dismissed from office
was now leading this Swedish enterprise to occupy part of the
territory he had formerly governed for the Dutch. His two ships
sailed up the Delaware and with good judgment landed at the
present site of Wilmington.
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