Document: Answer to the petition of the magistrates of New Amsterdam, granting the city the excise on all wine and liquor consumed there

Reply to the preceding petition:

The director-general and council consent herewith that the mayors and schepens may levy the proposed burghers' excise on wines, brandy, distilled spirits and beers consumed within this city on the same terms and conditions as the receipt of the tapsters' excise formally granted to them according to our edict of 25 November 1653.[1] The request for two percent on all incoming goods, for 10 stivers per last for each small and large vessel and for a spirit excise on all outgoing merchandise is denied by the director-general and council because these duties concern the country in general and not a particular city or place.

The request for the appointment of two sworn beer-porters is deferred until further information is obtained as to how and in what way two beer-porters shall be able to accommodate and benefit the inhabitants and how two beer-porters are to haul the beer from and to the country people; also, whether a brewer out­side the city shall not be allowed to transport his own brew in and out with his own cart, sled or wagon. Thus done at the meeting held by the director-general and high council in New Amsterdam, New Netherland, 23 February 1654; was signed: P. Stuyvesant, Nicasius de Sille, C. van Werckhooven, La Montagne, Cornelis van Thienhooven.