On the west side of the river the governor strengthened Fort Christina, the fur emporium of New Sweden where the general storehouses were maintained. He moved his own headquarters however to a much grander manor setting farther upstream at Tinicum Island. There, on this water-bound river bank, over which sleek airliners now wing low, in and out of close by Philadelphia Airport, he built a riverside fort of hemlock logs “laid one upon another” and a princely “hall” for himself. Fort New Gothenborg, he named this new capital, which was little more than half a dozen miles from Dutch Fort Nassau across the river. To Fort New Gothenborg the Swedish governor hoped to attract most of the Indian traffic that he now shared grudgingly with the New Netherland traders. For a while the strategy proved highly successful, especially after Printz established a trading post on the near-by Schuylkill to control that important artery of traffic from the hinterland. There, on Province Island, from which the English had so recently been ousted, he built a blockhouse of his own and mounted “stone cannon” on it. These were the vicious little “murderers” of the time, whose broad iron mouths could be jammed with stones or anything else lethal that might be handy to spray attackers at close range. Other buildings too were later erected at Province Island, but in the spring of 1644 the blockhouse served for stores, and also as quarters for Lieutenant Mans Kling and the traders stationed there. The Dutch traders under Jan Jansen at Fort Nassau, frustrated by lack of numbers as well as by restraining orders from Fort Amsterdam, now could only stand by watching and biting their nails, while taking whatever crumbs of the Indian trade their Swedish neighbors deigned to share with them. This same year of 1644 some merchants of Boston, with the backing of Winthrop and the Court of Massachusetts, formed a company to discover the great Lake of the Iroquois by ascending the Delaware River. Some dozen years earlier, Captain Walter Neale of the Laconia Company had failed in his efforts to reach the lake via the rivers of Maine. At least the Delaware ran in the right direction, toward that “inexhaustible” supply of beaver, something it was now conceded no Maine or Massachusetts rivers did. A well-equipped pinnace was actually sent out to the Delaware. However, just what happened on the river is vague. Certainly neither the Swedes nor the Dutch wanted English traders on their “backside.” A few tentative shots were fired, but apparently some wisely dispensed liquor accomplished more than force. In any event the New Englanders were “entertained,” one way or another, first at Fort Elfsborg by the Swedes and then at Fort Nassau by the Dutch, and in the end they were persuaded to turn back. They returned to Boston in their pinnace, at great loss to the chagrined investors in the enterprise. * * * * *