Governor Printz reacted violently as might have been expected. He sent out several chastising expeditions of armed men who tore down palisades, destroyed surrounding forests and burned houses being built about the new Dutch trading post. But there doesn’t appear to have been too much blood shed, and the whole affair ended up amusingly enough when the Swedes constructed a blockhouse of their own on the riverside within a dozen feet of the gates to the Dutch fort. Evidently the six nervous Hollanders who manned Fort Beversrede looked the other way during this operation. In any case, after the Swedish blockhouse went up, thirty-five feet in length, the Hollanders in their fort didn’t have “the sight of the water on the kill” that they were supposed to dominate. It is easy to imagine that this was almost too much for Stuyvesant. However, he was cautioned by his employers in Holland to arm himself with some patience before using force against the Swedes. But then, becoming increasingly irritated by further trespasses, the governor determined to send both ships and troops to the South River as a convincing show of strength. In 1651 he dispatched eleven ships with arms and supplies around the coast, while he marched overland with 120 soldiers to Fort Nassau where the fleet met him. There ensued much on-the-spot argument among the Dutch, the Swedes, and the Indians, about their overlapping land titles. But it all ended up with the Dutch becoming the masters of the South River, their troops being much the most persuasive consideration in the case. Stuyvesant sailed down the river to a likely site on the west bank just below Fort Christina, landed two hundred men and erected a commanding fortification which he named Fort Casimir. Located on a peninsula, near present New Castle, Fort Casimir was 210 feet long and was mounted with twelve guns, some of which came from Fort Nassau, now dismantled. Two warships were also stationed in the river and several English trading-boats were taken as prizes since England and Holland were at war. All traders on the South River were now compelled to pay duty to New Netherland. Printz’s situation deteriorated rapidly as Dutch trading factors overran New Sweden, monopolizing the beaver commerce. With pitifully few remaining subjects, desertions having cut the total population to less than a hundred souls, the governor had to leave Forts Elfsborg and Korsholm unmanned and rotting. Now that he was without trade goods even the Indians turned against him, boldly committing depredations within the limits of the colony. The people, growing mutinous, openly accused “Big Belly” of avarice and brutality. They claimed that by their enforced labor he had filled his storehouses at Tinicum Island with skins for his personal profit. But he tore up a petition of their grievances and had their leader convicted of treason. Then he heatedly dared the others to complain again.