Document: Letter from Jacob Alrichs to the director and council

Honorable, Esteemed, Wise, most Prudent Lords:

My Lords, after general Stuyvesant returned to Manhattan from here, the wind would not cooperate so that the yacht, de Eendracht, could take to sea or set sail. The yacht's cargo space for shipping some things there, has, for the most part, been taken up by one person or the other. Also, the skipper, Dirk Clasen, declared to have room for no more than about twenty ankers, which have been loaded aboard; these are from the goods belonging to the City of Amsterdam which were sent herewith according to the enclosed manifest. I request that you please issue orders for the unloading of the aforesaid yacht and have recorded or registered (as in the future) what goods, merchandise as well as provisions are brought over from here since many items are missing. Whatever is done there in this matter shall be an act of friendship to me and of special service to the City of Amsterdam. Captain Jacobsen has just come in and informs me that the ships, de Bever, Gelderse Blom and de Beer have arrived there. On these ships were around 50 or 55 people who are to settle on the South River in the Amsterdam colony. May it please you to assign them some quarters there and also provide them with food for a short time, as necessity requires, until the provisions and other goods can be sent from here; and also to have them put aboard a suitably large ship which shall then transport them from there to the South River. For this I await advice of possibilities or most suitable means which would serve thereto and are now available so that I can regulate myself accordingly. Captain Ja[ cob sails ] tomorrow or, at the latest, the day after, if the weather remains dry and fair [ ] with some barrels of flour, peas, groats, and oil as well as [ ] as other things [ ].

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[ At the river ] Sictawagh on [ Long Island ], 20 March 1657.

[ Addressed: ] Honorable, Esteemed, Wise most Prudent Lords,the Honorable Director-General and Council residing in New Netherland on Manhattan