Document: Ordinance regulating certain fees payable at the public store in New Amsterdam

Whereas the director general and council of New Netherland are reliably informed, and told of general complaints about certain fees, which have been exacted up to now without their knowledge, concerning various official documents and salaries relating to commerce, which they intend to rectify, according to the orders and instructions of the honorable lords directors; therefore, the aforesaid director general and council do hereby order that henceforth there shall be paid for a bill of lading:

Concerning the laborers’ wages for bringing the goods and merchandise from the ship to the Company’s warehouse, the aforesaid director general and council order that the skippers shall henceforth be obliged to deliver the goods and merchandise at the headland or at the main bank at high tide, in front of or near the Company’s warehouse, from where the sworn laborers shall bring them into the Company's warehouse, and receive as pay:

Other and smaller containers in proportion at the discretion of the fiscal or whoever, in his place, is in charge of the warehouse.

After the goods and merchandise have been delivered at the above rates to the warehouse, the merchants may negotiate with the laborers for the best rate possible, according to the remoteness and distance of the places to which they must be brought; and in the event of unreasonableness, then the fiscal shall decide the matter, or whosoever, in his place, shall have charge of the warehouse as commissary. However, no one is to be hindered from having his own goods transported from the warehouse by his own workers or servants, with the consent and order as previously stated.

Thus done at the session of the honorable director general and council held at Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland, the 6th of September 1656.[2]