Document: Power of attorney from Catalyn van Straseele, widow of Jan Jansen van Ilpendam, to Johannes de Laet to collect money due her deceased husband by the West India Company

Before me, Cornelis van Tienhoven, secretary of New Netherland, appeared Catalyntje van Strassel,[1] widow of Jan Jansen Ilpendam, deceased, who appoints and empowers the honorable Mr. Johan de Leet, director of the West India Company, to ask, demand and receive in her, the principal’s, name from the honorable directors of the General Chartered West India Company, chamber at Amsterdam, all such sums of money as her deceased husband has earned from said directors as commissary at Fort Nassau, [ as ] appears by the Book of Monthly Wages, No. F, now transmitted by the ship De Princes. Furthermore, the above mentioned Mr. de Laet shall have power to take care of and attend for her, the principal, to the accounts kept by her deceased husband as commissary at Fort Nassau, on account of which he was prosecuted here by Fiscal vander Hoykens before the director and council of New Netherland and finally deprived of his office, as more fully appears by the papers in the suit. The said Mr. Johan de Laet shall have power to institute and carry on legal proceedings in the matter before all such judges as need shall require or his honor shall deem proper, and before them prosecute the case to the end as plaintiff or defendant, hear judgment pronounced and appeal therefrom; with authority also to substitute one or more persons with one and the same power. And in case the above named attorney receive the deceased Jan Jansen Ilpendam’s monthly wages, he may execute an acquittance therefor and guarantee the honorable directors against future claims, doing whatever she, the principal, could or might do were she present, even though the case require fuller and more specific power than is herein mentioned. She, Catalyntje van Strassel, promises to hold and cause to be held firm and valid all that the attorney or his substitute shall do or perform in the case. Thus done and signed by Catalyntje van Strassel in the presence of Mr. Augustyn Heerman and Jan Vienje, witnesses hereto invited, in

Fort Amsterdam in Netherland, the 16th of August anno 1647.

Catelyn van Straseelle
Augustin Herrman
J. Vinje