Document: Order to the fiscal to prosecute tavern keepers at Fort Orange who refused to allow their liquors to be gauged

Tuesday, 12 July 1655

Whereas, according to the instructions of the provisional commissary Johan de Deckere, Pieter Adriaen Soo gemackelijck,[1] Maria Goossens, and Adriaen Jansz van Leyden alias Appel, all tappers near Fort Orange, dwelling, as far as we know, within the thousand rods, have opposed and refused by fraud and cheating of the tax collector to submit to the cask measure and, as a result, to pay the proper tax placed on wines and beer, which is in direct violation of the express resolution and order of the director general and councilors, issued the 13th of May this past year; also, contrary to the renewal and further reiteration by the high councilors of New Netherland, dated 21 June, last past, which refusal smacks of disobedience, from which evil consequences is to be expected. [ Therefore ] the fiscal Cornelis van Tienhoven is ordered to summon the aforesaid persons and to proceed against the same for the for the maintenance of good order and justice on behalf of the director general and councilors, according to the law, and with further defiance to make them appear whether voluntarily or not. Ady ut supra. (Was signed:) P. Stuyvesant, N. de Sille, La Montagne.[2]