At the session, having read the adjoined response to the charge of the lord fiscal submitted by Pieter Dircksz, it is ordered that a copy thereof be placed in the hands of the lord fiscal.[i]
Copy
To the honorable lord director general and high councilors of New Netherland.
Honorable highly esteemed lords:
Pieter Dircksz Waterhont, skipper on the ship N. Amsterdam, having seen the unfounded charge brought against him by the lord fiscal Cornelis van Tienhoven, responds thereto by first stating that here in this country, not only with the departure of the last ships to patria in which large quantities of tobacco had been loaded, the skipper was not required to have a certificate of permission, but that such has also been observed for a long time; likewise, it is also sufficiently well known that, for many years now, many beavers and peltries [ have been kept ] in the houses of merchants and factors residing here, and far and wide, with or in the presence of the Company’s servants, though probably without having packed them in cases and having shipped them themselves, without being brought into the Company’s warehouse and being inspected, so that accordingly, with all due reverence, the lord fiscal cannot insist that the tobacco must first be delivered to the warehouse. Besides, it is not only evident from a note of the lord fiscal dated last 16 November that the supercargo shall be permitted to take on tobacco in the ship N. Amsterdam from the English barks tied up nearby, provided that a memorandum be kept of the weight, marks, and by whom shipped, to whom consigned, and to have the hogsheads weighed on board. However, it is also evident from a note of the lord fiscal’s brother Adriaen van Tienhoven dated the end of November, last past, of which both authenticated copies are hereto attached, which especially serve thereby as a refutation of the reasons alleged by the lord fiscal, that Skipper Pieter Dircksz was given consent to accept and have weighed for Jacob Cohun, being the Jew who shipped the hogshead and tobacco in question, as many hogsheads as the same shall ship, provided that the supercargo keep a memorandum of the same that are weighed and marked. Here is then total consent without restriction of amount or of time, concerning the shipping of hogsheads by the aforesaid Jew; therefore, the defendant claims not to have transgressed but to have followed orders; also, not knowing and disputing the verbal warnings that the fiscal supposedly made to him; and it happened that the hogsheads were shipped early in the day, because the tide was convenient. Also, because it is the winter season, the crew has much to do daily in order to be as ready and prepared as possible to be able to put the ship out to sea in the event of anticipated ice floes. Also, neither hogsheads or return goods have ever been shipped without the knowledge of the supercargo, nor ordered to accept same by the defendant, nor accepted except with prior consent; striving not only to avoid defrauding the honorable Company but ready to follow and execute any more specific or additional orders of your honors that might be directed to him and his crew regarding the loading of his ship. And whereas also in the aforesaid charge the lord fiscal presumes that more goods may have been loaded already into the aforesaid ship than acknowledged in the manifest, and accordingly requested that the ship be unloaded, and that the defendant be condemned to pay a fine etc.
Therefore, the defendant requests that the honorable plaintiff’s charge and request be revoked, and considering the defendant is ready to depart at any time, whether fully or half loaded, in order to prevent wintering over here and considerable damage, and not obliged to be detained (with all due respect) by drawn out proceedings, and if the unloading of the ship should be authorized, God forbid, I shall suffer with patience that such may be carried out as soon as possible or at your honors’ pleasure, in hopes of still being able to run out empty, or only loaded with ballast, before the ice floe. Nevertheless everything shall still be done hereby expressly under protest with regard to all the expenses, damages, and losses that he, defendant, and his superiors might suffer by the unloading and detention of his aforesaid ship, in which case suit shall be brought for restitution thereof, as it shall be deemed appropriate. Awaiting hereon your honors’
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Pieter Dircksz Waterhont [ ]
