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Updated: May 22, 2025
"we may be able to preserve them in order and in duty, and to constrain them if necessary. I will do in this respect, all that depends upon me. We will also endeavor to shut up the river." Governor Stuyvesant was very indignant, in view of what he deemed the pusillanimous conduct of Bikker in "this dishonorable surrender of the fort." It was in vain for him to attempt its recovery.
Bikker nobly offered himself for a peace-offering, and voluntarily resigned his employments in the city he had saved; and De Witt and his officers were released.
Governor Printz returned to Sweden, and in his place the warlike magistrate John Risingh came to the Delaware with some soldiers under the bold Swen Schute, and appeared before Fort Cassimer demanding its surrender. The Dutch residents fled to the fort demanding protection; but Bikker the commander said: "I have no powder. What can I do?"
They returned with the tidings that it was a Swedish ship full of people, with a new governor; and that they had come to take possession of the place, affirming that the fort was on land belonging to the Swedish government. Bikker with his small garrison, and almost destitute of ammunition, could make no resistance.
After an hour's parley, Bikker went out, leaving the gate of the fort wide open, and shook hands with Schute and his men, welcoming them as friends. The Swedes fired two shots over the fort in token of its capture and then, blotting out the Dutch garrison, named it Fort Trinity, as the surrender was on Trinity Sunday, 1654. Stuyvesant was enraged and perplexed by this surrender.
We entreat you to exert every nerve to avenge that injury, not only by restoring affairs to their former situation, but by driving the Swedes from every side of the river. We have put in commission two armed ships, the King Solomon and the Great Christopher. The drum is beaten daily in the streets of Amsterdam for volunteers. And orders are given for the instant arrest of Bikker."
Cornelius Bikker, one of the burgomasters of Amsterdam, was the leading person in the states of Holland; and a circumstance soon occurred which put him and the stadtholder in collision, and quickly decided the great question at issue.
It will be remembered that the Swedish government claimed the territory on the South, or Delaware river, upon which the Dutch governor had erected Fort Casimir. Gerrit Bikker was in command of the fort, with a garrison of twelve men. On the morning of the first of June, 1654, a strange sail was seen in the offing. A small party was sent out in a boat, to reconnoitre.
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