Document: Order on a petition that Dutch brokers may be employed to trade with the Indians

The honorable court having read a petition presented to their honors by Jacob Tijsen, Gerrit Slechtenhorst, and Lambert van Neck, as representatives of eighty inhabitants of this village of Beverwijck, who signed the petition, whereby they earnestly request that the Dutch may be allowed to go into the woods as brokers, which, although of dangerous consequence, cannot be prevented without causing greater mischief. It is therefore left to the discretion of the petitioners to do or not to do it, the court protesting meanwhile their innocence of all mischief that may result therefrom, the more so as some of the petitioners have said that they would do it anyway, whether it was permitted or not.