Whereas, for a long time now, the payment of the export duty, both on peltries and tobacco, has been very bad, and such that when the honorable Company’s receiver wishes to make purchases for the Company with the same beavers that some merchants are in the habit of paying to the Company, the pay is refused by others, indeed, by the very same persons from whom those beavers have been received, [ to the serious loss and damage both of the Company and of its officials in this country, because some merchants in packing, lay aside the poorest and worst beavers for the Company, or else, in case the ] Company or its officials have need of any commodities, these are charged to them in ordinary settlement one half per cent and more than they can be obtained from others with good merchantable beavers, whereby the Company’s treasury in general is greatly retarded, and its officials considerably harmed.[i]
The director general and councilors wishing to provide herein as much as possible, have hereby resolved to order and command their fiscal and the provisional receiver, not to receive for the export duty any other payment than good, whole merchantable beavers; in no case, any summer skins or drielingen,[ii] which the merchants themselves generally refuse and reject; and that at eight guilders per beaver for merchandise to be exported. Concerning the remitted four percent, which must be paid in silver coin in the fatherland, the receiver is ordered to accept it in silver coin according to its value in our fatherland, or in good beavers, the beaver calculated no higher than six guilders, or in goods, in case the Company has need of them, at 50 percent [ advance on the duty, as the Company is in the habit of dispensing these to its servants; and in case there be an uneven amount, and that the total is more or less than one beaver, the payer shall be allowed to pay what is less than half a beaver in ] silver coin, or [ whole, well-strung ] sewant, according to its value here; for what exceeds half a beaver, one whole beaver shall be paid to the receiver, provided he return to the provider the surplus in like coin or sewant.
In order to prevent further disputes about half beavers or pieces, the director general and councilors order that those which are now commonly passed as half beavers, creating many arguments, and all other pieces that cannot pass for good whole beavers, shall not be declared and also received by the piece, but by weight, the pound calculated at [left blank] guilders. Done at the session, dated as before.
