Document: Minute of the appearance before the council of a committee of inhabitants of Gravesend

Willem Bont, Willem Willeckes, and Eduart Prous, inhabitants of Gravesande and commissioned by the obedient inhabitants of the aforesaid village, show to the high council a written petition dated 23 March 1655, requesting that the election of magistrates be postponed (without breaching their patent) until God Almighty returns our and their governor, the honorable P. Stuyvesant, here to this country in good health; or if, God forbid, the aforesaid lord should happen to perish, or if the voyage lasts too long, that the inhabitants of Gravesande shall be notified by the high council to proceed with the nomination of their magistrates, who, on the one side as on the other, are obliged to make the nominations. Then the lord director general, having returned, or the high council shall make the confirmation according to the patent and previous custom here in Fort Amsterdam. Done at Amsterdam in New Netherland. Ady ut supra (was signed:) Nicasius de Sille and Cornelis van Tienhoven.[1]

(Below was written:) After collation it was found to agree with the original, and was signed: Cor. van Ruyven, secretary. 23 March 1655.