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The director general and councilors of New Netherland, to all those who see this or hear it read, greetings.

Whereas we see and observe by experience that [ in spite of ] the previous ordinances enacted against the frauds and smuggling that are committed in regard to the beer dispensed by the tapsters and innkeepers, and in spite of our previous ordinance, some few inhabitants still practice tapping and brewing at the same time, whereby not only the customary excise is defrauded, but also other tapsters, who make that their only profession, are injured in their livelihood.

Therefore, in conformity with the public law of the fatherland and with a desire to remedy the same, it has been hereby ordered and ordained that no inhabitants who make a business of brewing shall be allowed to tap, sell or dispense, outside of mealtimes, any beer, wine or spirits, not even to boarders whom they claim go to eat with them, under which guise we notice no mean fraud is committed, for the prevention of one and the other, we order, in addition, that henceforth no beer or wine shall be moved from brewers’ cellars or warehouses, or transported and placed in the houses of tappers, unless they have first recorded the same in the secretary’s office, and the porters or carriers thereof have taken out the appropriate excise permit for the same, signed by the chief clerk of the secretary, which shall be shown and presented on the same day to our fiscal Hendrick van Dijck, or to whomever he shall have authorized in his absence as a substitute; notifying, at the same time, all brewers not to send out any unexcised beer, or to release the same to porters, carriers and tappers, unless an excise permit is first shown to them; on pain of forfeiting the beer and wine, and all implements, whether horses, sleighs or any other instruments by which the same are moved, and arbitrary punishment for those who lend a hand thereto.

Thus done and enacted, after consideration, in session in Fort Amsterdam, this 8th of November 1649.^[1]

Notes

References

Translation: Gehring, C., trans./ed., New Netherland Documents Series: Vol. 16, part 1, Laws and Writs of Appeal, 1647-1663 (Syracuse: 1991).A complete copy of this publication is available on the New Netherland Institute website.