Translation
Petition of the convention, requesting an answer to their remonstrance
To the Noble, Honorable Director-General and Council of New Netherland.
On the
11th of this month the representatives from the respective villages of Gravesande,
Vlissingen, Middelburgh, Heemsteede, Amesfoort, Breuckelen and Midwout, as well as
the mayors and schepens of the city of New Amsterdam who were convened at the City
Hall of this city, submitted to your honors a remonstrance and petition to which they
received in reply the following day a demand for copies so that a well-considered
response might be given. When the aforesaid assembly responded to this in writing on
the same day, the director-general and council, instead of giving a decision on the
petition, were pleased to charge the assembly with illegality because of a pretended
lack of judicial authority for the villages of Midwout, Amesfoort and Breuckelen,
which consequently could not send properly authorized representatives; and to protest
against them, which they consider strange, especially as the aforesaid villages were
not written to by the mayors and schepens except with the foreknowledge of the
honorable director-general and council. Moreover, the assembly was begun with no
other aim than the service and protection of the country, the maintenance and
preservation of the freedoms, privileges and property of its inhabitants; not as an
unlawful usurpation of the authority of the aforesaid honorable director-general and
council, on the contrary, to prevent and deter lawlessness. And because the laws of
nature give to all men the right to assemble for the welfare and protection of their
freedom and property; therefore, the representatives of the aforesaid assembly, as
well as the mayors and schepens, respectfully request that your honors, after
declaring the aforesaid convention legal, be pleased to reply to the points submitted
in their remonstrance, while they are willing to admit to their meetings, with all
due respect, and allow to share in and advise on all business, which may come up, all
such persons whom your honors may decide to commission. In case of refusal (which
they hope does not happen) they would find themselves compelled to protest against
your honors for all the inconveniences which have befallen or may befall the country
in general or in particular, and they intend to address themselves to their High
Mightinesses, the lords States-General, as their sovereigns and to the chartered
W.I.C. as their patroons, in order to submit to them a remonstrance on such matters
as they believe are required for the service and welfare of the country. Your honors
humble servants.