Reply of Johan Risingh, appointed director of New Sweden and most obedient servant of his Royal Majesty in Sweden, to Peter Stuyvesandt, Director-General of New Netherland, Curacao, etc.[1]
I must be brief in my reply to your open letter delivered to me by three persons at my quarters yesterday.[2] What you and I agreed upon concerning the movable property in the capitulation can be clearly seen in the first paragraph of the same. According to its tenor you should be held responsible for everything that was found in or outside of Fort Christina. The gunner, Johan Danielson, turned over to your representatives some materials and military supplies, etc., and handed the keys over to them. If your representative were not satisfied with this, they should not have accepted the keys nor removed any of the things from there in the absence of my people. At Tennakong your people took away in an unbecoming manner the tackling and sails for a new ship. Without asking for the keys to the storage house, they went there secretly, broke a board out of the church and took away the aforesaid tackling and sails.
The old alliance and union between his Royal Majesty in Sweden and the High and Mighty Lords of the States-General of the United Netherlands, which you mention, have really been little respected by you considering the invasion, siege and finally the seizure of all the lands and fortresses in this part of the world belonging to my most gracious lord and king. I myself simply cannot believe that the above-mentioned High and Mighty Lords of the States-General have given you such an order; because your people have ravaged us as if they were in the country of their archenemy, to which fact the plundering at Tennakong, Uplandt, Finlandt, Prinstorp and many other places bear a clear witness; not to mention what happened around Fort Christina: where the women were, sometimes with violence, torn from their houses; buildings dismantled and hauled away; oxen, cows, pigs and other animals slaughtered daily in large numbers; even the horses were not spared but wantonly shot, the plantations devastated and everything thereabouts so ill-treated that our provisions have consequently been mostly spoiled, taken away and otherwise consumed.
I informed you by a letter dated 16/26 September that I could not accept your offer to continue to reside in Fort Christina, because I am solely responsible to his royal majesty in Sweden and the honorable South Company. Concerning your charge that your soldiers had already marched out of Fort Christina before my departure and placed the keys in my hand, and that I improperly left the same ungarrisoned and unprovided for: to this I must reply that for whatever damage may have resulted thereby, that not I but you stripped the fort of everything by letting your soldiers take away what was found there, indeed my own personal possessions; and those of my men were, for the most part, already taken to the ship before your soldiers withdrew toward evening on the 28th of September, old style, leaving me with only a few men and without any means of defense, as sacrificial lambs for the Indians. It shall never be proven that any keys to the fortress were placed in my hands by your soldiers, much less that I accepted the same. I am amazed that you attribute such things to me; moreover, it is fortunate that you are not a judge in these matters. For this reason I give no mind to your charges that I be responsible for the damages as a result of the place being left unoccupied. It is also ridiculous to hear that someone else should be responsible for that which you alone are the cause. I submit the matter to God and my lord and king who shall certainly, in time, inquire into the violence and injustices done to his majesty's lands and subjects.
I think it unnecessary to answer the other point extensively, except that what I am unjustly accused of therein is nothing other than blasphemies. I have, before this, been a guest of persons of high and low rank, and, praise God, have known well to give each the respect due to him; and I have not abstained from doing that here. The manner, however, in which I have been treated, I will leave to be settled at the proper time.
The separate negotiation which you call the secret capitulation[3] and which according to your allegation was made with me without the knowledge of my people, was made not without but rather with their knowledge and signed by you in their presence at the place where we met. This [ agreement ] you are bound and obligated to keep (if you in the future do not wish to be accused of breaking your word). I have no knowledge of what has been said concerning violent threats supposedly made by me, and since the statements of opposing parties are given credence, many things could be said behind the back of an honest man. Be it as it may, I have requested in all justice, that, according to the capitulation, the people accompanying me to this place would now no longer be persuaded to remain here, and that according to the agreement, they would all accompany me on one ship; however, I find on the contrary that not only has the largest part of them been persuaded with great promises to remain here, but the few persons who still desire to leave with me are distributed here and there on various ships, in direct opposition to the capitulation; moreover, they cannot bring along the little baggage still left to them. Therefore, I herewith request once again that all my people be allowed to depart with me unimpeded on one ship; in addition, that everything stipulated by your hand in the principal and separate negotiations be honored in full; and I herewith assure you that no trouble, either by word or deed, will be given to anyone on the ship or otherwise in transit by me or any of my people. I also protest herewith in optima forma to you against all that has been inflicted upon my all gracious lord and king together with his majesty's subjects by the invasion and occupation of the entire South River of New Sweden, as well as against the items not included in the inventory, such as vessels, cattle and many other like things.
Done at Amsterdam in New Netherland, 19/29 October 1655.
Johan Risingh
