Document: Ordinance against firing at partridges or other game within the limits of New Amsterdam

Whereas many guns are daily discharged and fired at partridges and otherwise within the jurisdiction of this city of New Amsterdam and in the vicinity of the fort, by which firing people or cattle could easily be struck and injured, against which practice complaints have already been made.

Therefore, the honorable director general and council, in order to prevent accidents, expressly forbid and prohibit all persons henceforward from firing within the jurisdiction of this city, or near the fort, with any guns at partridges or other game that may by chance fly within the city, on pain of forfeiting the gun and a fine at the discretion of the judge, to be applied one-third to the poor, one-third to the church and one-third to the officer.

Thus done and enacted in Fort Amsterdam, in New Netherland, the 9th of October 1652.[1]