Document: Order remitting rev. Mr. Polhemus a debt of 940 guilders due the company

Received and read the remonstrance and petition of dominee Johannes Theodorus Polheijm, minister on Long Island at Midwout etc., mainly showing that from October in the year 1654 until the 7th of April 1656 (when he made an agreement with the inhabitants of the villages of Breuckelen, Midwout, and Amesfoort) he, to the best of his ability held the office of minister there and performed the duties connected with that without the inhabitants of the said villages paying him anything for it. Therefore (because he had arrived here from the islands naked and bare) he has been compelled to occasionally draw, with knowledge of the director general and councilors, something from the Company’s warehouse and office, altogether amounting to the sum of nine hundred and forty-two guilders. Therefore, he requests that the sum may be withdrawn from his account and balanced against his services [performed during the time, as above stated, when he received no salary, so that his wife and children might not be troubled or asked to pay it at some future time.[i]

Having] taken this into consideration [ and being well aware that ] the laborer is worthy of his wages, that from the year 1654 until April 7, 1656 the petitioner served as a minister in the said villages without receiving anything from the inhabitants for it, he is granted the aforesaid sum of ƒ942, and the commissary is ordered to relieve him from this, and to balance the same item against the service performed by the petitioner. Dated as above.

P. Stuyvesant