In 1626 a company of Swedish merchants organized, under the patronage of the Great King Gustavus Adolphus, to promote immigration to America. The King contributed four hundred thousand dollars to the capital raised, but did not live to see the fruition of his plans. In 1637, the first company of Swedes and Finns left Stockholm for America. They reached Delaware Bay and called the country New Sweden. The Dutch claimed, by right of priority, this same territory and in 1655 the flag of Holland replaced that of Sweden. The small Swedish colony in Delaware came under Penn’s rule and became, like Pennsylvania, cosmopolitan in character. The Dutch in New York preserved their racial characteristics for more than a hundred years after the English conquest of 1664. At the end of the colonial period, over one-half of the 170,000 inhabitants of New York were descendants of the original Dutch. Many of the immigrants who came here in the early days paid their own passage. However, the actual number of such is only a matter of conjecture. From the shipping records of the period we do know positively that thousands came who were unable to pay. Shipowners and others who had the means furnished the passage money to those too poor to pay for themselves, and in return received from these persons a promise or bond. This bond provided that the person named in it should work for a certain number of years to repay the money advanced. Such persons were called “indentured servants” and they were found throughout the colonies, working in the fields, the shops and the homes of the colonists. The term of service was from five to seven years. Many found it impossible to meet their obligations and their servitude dragged on for years. Others, on the contrary, became free and prosperous. In Pennsylvania often there were as many as fifty bond servants on estates. The condition of indentured servants in Virginia “was little better than that of slaves. Loose indentures and harsh laws put them at the mercy of their masters.”[14] This seems to have been their fate in all the colonies, as their treatment depended upon the character of their masters. Besides these indentured servants who came here voluntarily, a large number of early settlers were forced to come here. The Irish before mentioned are one example. In order to secure settlers, men, women and children were kidnapped from the cities and towns and “spirited away” to America by the companies and proprietors who had colonies here. In 1680 it was officially computed that 10,000 were sent thus to American shores. In 1627, about 1,500 children were shipped to Virginia, probably orphans and dependents whom their relatives were unwilling to support.[15] Another class sent here were convicts, the scourings of English centers like Bristol and Liverpool. The colonists protested vehemently against this practise, but it was continued up to the very end of the colonial period, when this convict tide was diverted to “Botany Bay.”