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The lord general responds to the above request as follows: It is, on the proposal of the schout, burgomasters and schepenen, advised, and until there be a larger number of the ordinary councilors, also provisionally ordained, that when the schout, burgomasters and schepenen farm out the burgher excise on wine and beer, with the approbation of the director general and councilors, agreeably to the custom and order of the fatherland, the ordinances and regulations on that subject enacted by the supreme government of our fatherland ought consequently be likewise put in practice and observed here as far as possible: Therefore we resolve and ordain by form of explanation,^[i]

1.

That all persons in, or within the jurisdiction of, this city, who make a business of brewing, shall, pursuant to the ordinance, pay to the farmer twenty stivers for each brewing, whether of strong or small beer.

2.

In order to prevent fraud and smuggling, we resolve and ordain that no brewers or brewsters shall remove or lay any casks of beer from the brewery in their own or in other people’s houses or cellars, without first having given notice thereof to the farmer, and having received from the farmer, or his collector, an invoice [uijtslach cedul] or receipt of payment [inslach cedul] for it, whereupon must appear the quantity of the beer that the brewer or brewster intends to remove on his or her own account, for which receipt of payment six stivers shall be paid for the benefit of the farmer, the brewer or brewster, remaining bound to submit to the gauging, and to the fine regarding fraud.

3.

It is true that the general ordinance distinguishes between brewers and wholesale beer distributors, which distinction does not as yet exist here, because the brewers themselves, delivering the beer by the whole, half or quarter cask, are to be considered both as brewers and wholesale beer merchants; therefore it is resolved and provisionally ordained that the brewers and retailers of beer shall agree with the farmer respecting their own consumption, or else pay to the farmer or his collector, pursuant to the ordinance, eight stivers per month for the drink of each person over 12 years of age.

4.

In regard to the demand against the brewers or brewsters, who thus far have refused to submit to the gauging, the claim of the farmer is for the present, denied; provided, nevertheless, that the contumacious brewer shall present to the church a decent fine, and that the farmer, after the publication or promulgation hereof, shall receive as an indemnity for his claim and to prevent further complaints, the legal burgher excise, according to the lease, twelve stivers each consecutive month.

5.

Whereas, by the terms of the lease, the excise on wine and beer is imposed on all without exception, on officials of the Company as well as on freemen, in order to prevent further claims, it is resolved and ordained that the same shall happen provisionally, provided that the farmer shall amicably agree with the officials of the Company; the Company, and what is laid in or sent away on its account, only excepted.

Thus advised and provisionally ordained by the honorable director general, this 25th of November anno 1656, in Amsterdam in New Netherland (was signed)

P. Stuyvesant (below was written)

By order of the honorable lord director general of New Netherland, Curaçao, etc.

(and was signed)

Cornelis van Ruyven, secretary.

Notes

References

Translation: Gehring, C., & Venema, J. (Ed.). New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, Vol. 8, Council Minutes, 1656-1658 Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press: 2018.A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website.