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The petition [      ] persuasive reasons for the [      ] contains these following [      ] to be taken into consideration.

• The injury and damage to domestic commerce, which the permanent and long-established inhabitants come to suffer by the comings and goings of the schotsen, infers by supposition a request of redress and remedy regarding it, [ which is ] included by the remonstrants and petitioners in the conclusion with the establishment of a burgher right in this city;

Secondly, that no one except for such well-known citizens would be allowed to run a public shop;

Thirdly, a more specific description of the restriction that no one except for such citizens, oratleast firmly settled andpermanentinhabitants, may be allowed to trade or traffic at some remote places within this government; The reasons prompting thereto, the petitioners construe from the trouble, labor, and burdens already sustained and borne by the citizenry or inhabitants of this city [several lines lost] benefit of the staple [      ] granted [      ] by the lords directors [      ].

Regarding the cited reasons, they cannot be denied much less contradicted; and, on that account it is proper that these citizens and inhabitants of this city are deserving of privileges above others and should be encouraged to continue both for what they did in the past English and wiltse troubles as well as for what might still come to happen, as this place is regarded the most principal and frontier place, subject to the first and most assaults, resulting in difficulty, labor, and resistance. But whether the request can be given to the petitioners in this form and whether it squares with the advice and consent of the lords directors as well as with the population of the country, which needs to be especially observed, has its necessary considerations, however, one more than the other:

Regarding the first, namely, the burgher right and that no one other than who is known here as a burgher would be allowed to keep any public shop or elsewhere [several lines lost] to force to serving [      ] and therefore in my opinion best [      ] as soon as possible, [      ] and recommendations of the aforesaid lords directors, namely, to draft and establish that from now on no arriving traders, whether skippers, sailors or schotsen, however they may be named, shall be allowed to sell, transport or send off their goods within the country, unless they beforehand keep a public store within this city, whether in their own or in a leased house or room, just as it is most suitable and convenient to the trader, without binding him to real estate or a stay longer than pleases him. Regarding the last, the only exception is an extreme emergency and situation concerning the preservation of the entire country, and then just only for the time as that is practicable in our fatherland.

And, whereas for the keeping of a public shop some kind of burgher right is required in conformity with the customs of our fatherland, where no one is permitted a public shop in a well-administered city unless he has a burgher or poorter right [several lines lost] subject to burgher obligations [      ] from now on all [ arriving ] traders, before they are allowed to the keeping of a public shop, request the burgher right from burgomasters and schepenen, on the condition that they pay a civil and reasonable [ sum ] for it, take the oath of loyalty to the superior administration of the director general and councilors of New Netherland, as do burghers and poorteren; once this is done, they will be allowed in their own or rented house as a public shop keeper, and if they keep fire and light they will not be refused or obstructed to negotiate, traffic, and trade within and outside this province as do other burghers and poorteren and inhabitants of this province, whether it be with their own or hired barks, yachts, and vessels, without any goods or merchandise, by virtue of the staple right as observed in our fatherland, being allowed to be transported or imported from abroad with the ships, yachts or barks, which brought them into the country, whether it be from the fatherland or from neighboring places unless by payment of the staple right, freight and money.

And because no burgher or poorter right obligates anyone [      ] as an oath-sworn loyal somebody to [      ] longer than his situation [several lines lost] by virtue of this [      ] of the lords directors [      ] still pertain to residency (as constrained [ by the ] and slave like [      ] my advice serves that such as [      ] they have received for the time of their residency the burgher or poorter right, they would lose it again with their departure from here to the fatherland, and upon returning they will have to apply and receive it once again, on the condition of paying beforehand the specified fee for it, or during his absence to keep fire and light at the place of his burgher right in conformity with the general order of our fatherland.

P. Stuyvesant

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.