The no-expense colonizing scheme was not a new one among the colonial powers of Europe, except for its dressing. Members of the West India Company who at their own expense planted the unoccupied provinces of New Netherland were to become “patroons,” that is, proprietors of little colonial principalities with feudalistic “privileges and exemptions.” By transporting and settling a specified number of colonists, black slaves qualifying as such, a rich if otherwise undistinguished merchant of Amsterdam could elevate himself to the worshipful status of a feudal lord. Of course he had first to purchase his land from the Indians in conformance with Dutch policy. A little _aqua vitae_ and a few jackets sufficed usually to keep that a relatively minor expense however. There was only one hitch. A patroon could not engage in the fur trade. He had freedom of trade in any merchandise “except beavers, otters, minks, and all sorts of peltry.” The commerce in pelts was to remain the company’s monopoly. Because of this restriction the early patroonships were destined to failure. Trade in furs was needed to help root a new plantation in the soil, as had already been proved so often on the wild American coasts. Only one of the early patroonships survived, Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s colony in the Albany area. And it was the illegal pursuit of private fur trade that suckled Rensselaerwyck through its infancy. The earliest patroonship for which land was chosen in New Netherland was patented on the “South River” in 1630. Samuel Godyn and Samuel Blommaert, leading members of the company, were original partners in this venture which later included Captain David Pieters de Vries among others. Their original manor tract, called Swanendael, lay west of Cape Henlopen in Delaware Bay, but the proprietorship was later extended to the opposite shore including Cape May. The bay, reportedly, was a favorite haunt of whales, many having been sighted there in the past. It was decided that whaling would be a profitable enterprise in lieu of fur trading to support the plantation in its infancy. The first colonizing expedition to Swanendael arrived in the spring of 1631 and planted at Whorekill, on present-day Lewes Creek, just above Cape Henlopen. Although the whaling proved a failure that year, the ship that brought over the colonists returning to Amsterdam with no more than a sample of oil taken from a dead whale found on the beach, it was said that the settlers did seed their land and had a fine crop by July. But then, as the story goes, a piece of tin was the instrument of their undoing.