Excerpt from Manual of the Legislature of New Jersey: One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Session, 1911 In its settlement, New Jersey was not an English colony. The claims of the Crown, based upon early discovery and various grants, were totally ignored by two great com mercial nations of Europe - Holland and Sweden. It was not until 1664, practically a half century after the first occupancy of New Jersey by a white man, that England had aught more than a slight influence upon the destinies of the State. In settlement, Holland was first to send out planters, under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company. Claiming both the valleys of the Hudson and the Delaware, by Virtue of the explorations of Hudson and Mey, land was taken up upon the banks of the Hudson, Passaic, Hackensack, Raritan and smaller streams tribu tary to New York harbor, as well as at Gloucester upon the Delaware. By 1630 these claims were well established by occupancy, and by the creation of a centre of local government in what is now New York city. Upon the rapidly growing influence of Holland, Sweden looked with jealous eye. Gustavus Adolphus, in his plan to make Sweden a world-power, saw the Dutch to be dangerous rivals in America. In 1638 there was equipped a Swedish expedition to settle the valley of the Delaware. What is now the State of Delaware, the valley of the Schuylkill and isolated portions of the west bank of the Delaware River were occupied, civil and military government was established, and the colony of farmers and traders entered upon a brief career of prosperity. The death of Gustavus Adolphus, internal dissentions in Sweden, the inherent weakness of the Delaware settlements, and the constantly increasing power of Holland brought matters to a crisis. In 1655 New Sweden was conquered by New Netherlands. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.