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Letter from the burgomasters and schepens to director and council

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To the noble, very esteemed and honorable director-general and high council of New Netherland.

With all due reverence and humility, the mayors and schepens of the city of New Amsterdam show how on the 20th of July, while in session, they were summoned before the honorable director-general,[158] where, in the presence of two clergymen, domines Megapolensis and Driesius, his honor communicated to them the letter from the honorable lords-directors at the chamber of Amsterdam, lords and patroons of the province of New Netherland, and told them what their honors desired. His honor thereupon admonished them to forget what has passed before and to live henceforth in harmony, which was promised by both sides. Thus the honorable director-general handed over the letters sent to the mayors and schepens by the lords-superiors according to which we have been inclined to govern ourselves by obeying what was mentioned therein. Now the honorable director-general and high council have been pleased to reprimand us in a certain document sent to us on the 4th of August[159] concerning some negligence and to propose the great necessity to consider some source of revenue by which the civil, ecclesiastical and military personnel (arrived by the last ship, with more expected soon) might be supported and maintained; also, to determine our quota of the amounts to be paid for everything expended in the construction of the common walls and the breastworks; and also to recount that the mayors and schepens had obtained last year from the director-general and council the receipts from the tapsters' excise, under the condition that the ecclesiastical personnel be paid therefrom and that the mayors and schepens make good any deficit from their own sources.

Notes

See Volume 5: 306, for the resolution on this action.
See The Records of New Amsterdam, 1653-1674, edited by Berthold Fernow, 7 vols., 1897 (reprinted Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1976), 1:223 for this letter dated 2 August 1654.

References

Translation: Gehring, C., trans./ed., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 5, Council Minutes, 1652-1654 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc.: 1983).A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website.