Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/69

 ambassadorial duties but for private trade adjustments, because the following year Stuyvesant wrote a similar request to Bennet asking that some reparation be made to Herrman by Edward Scarburgh, who owed him for some tobacco. In 1658 Herrman was a member of a group of four who were sent to treat with the Esopus Indians.

For a number of years the Dutch province had been constantly menaced by a new enemy toward the south. Since 1634 New Sweden on the east coast of Delaware and New Netherland had been engaged a few small and indecisive skirmishes; but it was not until the year 1655 that the Dutch finally prevailed over the Swedes and their power was shattered. This new territory was divided into Altoona and New Amstel, the older Swedish inhabitants being gradually absorbed by the Dutch or moved away to the English settlements. The dissolution of New Sweden, however, was a tactless adventure of the Dutch, for now they were placed in proximity to the English, with all the accompanying border disputes. Had the colonial Dutchmen been a little more experienced in the technicalities of diplomacy, they would have been glad to have had New Sweden remain as a kind of border state between New Netherland and Maryland. To offset the danger, on the other hand, New Amsterdam and the southern English colonies—though they, for the most part, remained loyal to the Stuart cause were drawn closely together for economic reasons brought about by the Navigation Act of 1651. Regardless of this friendly feeling, however, trouble did break out between the two provinces, Maryland and New Netherland; and it was