Document: Judgment in the case of the fiscal against Peter de Graeff

24 July

In session, present: the honorable lord director general Petrus Stuyvesant, the lords councilors Nicasius de Sille and La Montagne.

Having received the charge of the fiscal, as preserver of justice, and also acting on behalf of those absent, on and against one Pieter de Graeff, concerning a certain Spanish bark brought here by him and sold at public auction to the highest bidder on 8 July at the house of Abraham dela Nooy, public innkeeper, it was nevertheless bought back by him for the sum of ƒ905 and sold privately afterward to one Jan Perin for the sum of six hundred guilders; and whereas the legality [ ] claimed commission, signed Chaerles d Houël, governor of Guaerdeloupe,[i] nor the authorization for the capture] of the aforesaid [ bark ] as a good prize are clear to the director general the claimed commission stipulating that the aforesaid Pieter de Graeff is beholden to bring what of the Spaniards he transported, not up to New Netherland, but to the island Guaerduloupa, to which is added that he, Pieter de Graeff, and his crew, up to nineteen in number, mostly Netherlanders and mostly former servants and subjects of the chartered West India Company in Brazil, came in and arrived here with the bark to take on passengers for the fatherland, just as most soldiers had already left then or were ready to depart with the return ship the Bontekoe, still lying [ at anchor ], and the Swedish ship the Mercurius; also, the professed captain himself according to the contents of his publication[ii] and reply to the conclusion of the fiscal, as said before, not clear to the director general and councilors, nor the legality of the commission, nor the legality and confiscation of the aforesaid claimed prize; and pursuant to the concluded articles of peace between the crown of Spain and their high mightinesses, the lords States General, our sovereigns, it is not permitted to seize or sell our confiscated Spanish goods. The aforesaid director general and councilors agree that the turned over bark shall remain impounded under good inventory in the hands of Jan Perie and the captain shall be granted one year and 6 weeks’ time to [ ] the legality of the commission [several lines lost]