Document: Order of the burgomasters and schepens of New Amsterdam to send in a return of the proceeds and expenditure of the city excise

The director-general and council have, at various times and opportunities, reminded the previous aldermen as well as the present mayors and schepens of the absolute necessity to devise, as is customary in other countries and especially in our fatherland, some means to provide revenue from which the civil, ecclesiastical and military personnel might be supported and maintained, and their officers satisfied; however, the director-general and council have received no satisfactory answer so far nor seen a sign of inclination and willingness for such a necessary and customary matter, although the necessity has been demonstrated as clearly as the day. In spite of the fact that the director-general and council last year granted the mayors and schepens, with fair promises which were not fulfilled, as their petition shows, the receipts of the tapsters' excise for their own treasury, on the condition that they pay from it the ecclesiastical personnel and provide for any deficit therein themselves. The mayors and schepens have so far not only been remiss in the one as well as in the other - but have also not even favored the director-general and council with a reply concerning the ordinance passed by the mayors and schepens on behalf of the clergymen, much less with a return or proof of what has been done with the proceeds of the tapsters' excise (which heretofore has always been paid into the general treasury). Therefore, the director-general and council are compelled by their office and duty to remind the mayors and schepens, under instructions from the honorable lords-superiors, of the necessity to provide revenues for the support and maintenance of the civil and ecclesiastical officers as well as of the honorable Company in the latest ships and of the larger force still to arrive. The mayors and schepens will therefore be pleased to consider, without further delay and excuses, how to raise their quota pursuant to the orders and instructions of the aforesaid lords-superiors and the remonstrances made to us repeatedly; and they are to order at once their clerk and receiver to submit to us next Monday their reply and an account of the proceeds and expenditures of the tapsters' excise, upon which we are relying. Thus done at the session of the honorable lord director and high council held in New Amsterdam in New Netherland, 2 August 1654; and was signed: P. Stuyvesant, N. de Sille, C. van Werckhoven, La Montangne, Cor. van Thienhooven.