=61. The Dutch Settlers.=—The Dutch West India Company fared badly at the hands of its own members, the “Patroons,” who shut it out from trading with their estates. It also had trouble, as we have seen, with New Englanders at Hartford, and likewise with the Virginians, who came trading as far north as the Delaware River. With the Indians, too, there were serious disturbances, chiefly with the Algonquins, through the mismanagement of Governor Kieft (1643–1645). =62. Attempts to check the Patroons.=—The Company sought to check the power of the “Patroons” by establishing communities more or less independent of them, but the attempt did not thoroughly succeed. Political disturbances were also due in large measure to the overbearing conduct of governors, and to the lack of proper guarantees of popular liberty. In 1641, however, a council of twelve deputies from the settlements was called in to assist the governor, and a little later, under Peter Stuyvesant,[38] this was made a self-perpetuating council. Government was rendered specially difficult on account of the mixture of population in the colony. For example, so many French Huguenots had fled thither that documents were often printed in both French and Dutch. [Illustration: PETER STUYVESANT.] =63. Swedish Settlement.=—Meanwhile difficulties arose between the Dutch and the Swedes; for in 1638 the South Company of Sweden, which had been chartered under Gustavus Adolphus by an enterprising man, William Usselinx, sent out a former employee of the Dutch Company, Peter Minuit, to found a colony. He erected a fort on the site of what is now Wilmington, Delaware, and called the country New Sweden, under the protests, of course, of the Dutch, whose territorial claims had been invaded. New Englanders tried to establish themselves on the Schuylkill and in the present New Jersey, but were soon driven out. The Swedes persevered until Stuyvesant built a fort near one of theirs, not far from what is now Newcastle, Delaware; and four years later (1655) the Swedish Company was forced to give up its attempt at colonization.