126 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

them and any encroachments of the French and
Algonquins in Canada.

On the other boundaries and outskirts of their
possessions, the Dutch were less fortunate. They
had always claimed all the territory from the South
or Delaware River to the Fresh or Connecticut
River, but their pretensions were early challenged
by the English on the ground of prior discovery
and by the Swedes on the argument of non-occu-
pation of the land.

The reports of the wealth to be acquired from
the fur trade had quickly spread from Holland to
Sweden, and as early as 1624, Gustavus Adolphus,
encouraged by William Usselinx, a Dutchman and
promoter of the Dutch West India Company, was
planning expeditions to the New World. But the
entrance of Sweden into the Thirty Years' War
in 1630 put a stop to this plan, and the funds were
applied to war purposes. Gustavus Adolphus fell
at Llitzen in 1632, leaving the kingdom to his little
daughter Christina. Her Government was con-
ducted by Oxenstiern, a statesman trained in the
great traditions of Gustavus, who felt with him
that an American colony would be "the jewel of
his kingdom." An instrument for his purpose
presented itself in Peter Minuit, who had returned