Present: the lord director general Petrus Stuyvesant, the lord La Montagne and the fiscal de Sille.
Whereas Pieter Adriaenssz alias Soogemackelyck van Amsterdam, innkeeper, as he declares, in the colony of Renselaerswijck in New Netherland, presently prisoner, has spared no contempt of the director general and councilors [several lines lost] [ in opposing their well ]-intentioned [ orders and placards, ] promoting the general revenues of this country, by unwillingness to subject [ himself to the mandated ] impost placed on the consumption of wine and beer at the [tappers] nor the farmer’s measurement; upon which Pieter Adriaensz, [ on the ] complaints of the farmer first made to the commissioners of the farm, [ then ] by them referred to the director general and councilors, was arrested by the fiscal, as protector of the law, [ and ] was cited and summoned to appear before the director general and councilors; he remained in default upon the first, second and third summons, whereupon a more direct summons followed, and being informed of it by their commies Johan de Deckere as a result of further contemptuous actions against the authority of the aforesaid director general and councilors, having contemptuously disobeyed the summons, for which disobedience to the further orders and instructions of the director general and councilors the aforesaid Pieter Adriaensz was summoned, apprehended, and locked up by the commies De Deckere; he has in contempt of the law, violated detention, and fled the same; above all, condoning and approving of the reprehensible utterance of a certain Adriaen Jansz van Leyden, who, at his house, pointed to one Jan Baptista van Renselaer, saying: “there sits our lord, we know no other.” All of which are matters of grave consequences, tending first and foremost to the reduction of the country’s most requisite and necessary revenues, such as those during the time from his opposition for the period of two years and about four months, that he has been in opposition and has refused, and still continues, to submit to the usual tappers’ excise and measurement, as a result having damaged and noticeably reduced the country’s revenues, in addition, such opposition and refusal has led to [ the ] infringement of and damage to the well-intended orders and placards of the director general and councilors, and which is even worse, gives inducements and bad examples tending to sedition and mutiny to others. Whereupon, the indictment of the fiscal taken against the aforesaid Pieter Adriaensz Soo Gemackelyck and his defense having been heard, and having examined everything that might be of material interest, especially the admission of the prisoner admitting, without pain and iron bands, everything about which the fiscal has charged him with as protector of the law, pleading only that he wasn’t the cause of it, but rather a certain Jan Baptista van Renselaer, who had mislead him and forbade the payment of the wine and beer excise, the measurement of the farmer, and obeying the orders and summons of the director general and councilors, which fabricated misleading and forbidding by another subject of this province, the detainee neither can nor ought to justify.
The director general and councilors of New Netherland find the committed acts of very bad consequences, which in lands of [ justice ] as an example to others especially in these far remote places, cannot nor ought to go unpunished. Therefore, administering justice in the name of their high and mighty lords, the States General of the United Netherlands, in addition to the lords directors of the Chartered West India Company, lords and patroons of this New Netherland province, have condemned and sentenced the aforesaid Pieter Adriaensz, as they hereby do condemn him, first and foremost to pay the farmer fully as a judgment of arbitrators, and furthermore for such disobedience and contempt expressed against the director general and councilors of New Netherland, to be banished from this province for a period of three years, or otherwise fined two hundred Flemish pounds as reparations for the damages to the commonalty for the period of two years and four months, during which [ period ] the farm was refused, for the benefit of the commonalty as compensation for the damages suffered as settlement with the plaintiff for court costs and his service, remaining in his previous detention until payment of his fine is completed. Done at the session, the 7th of August 1656.
