Document: Sentence of Dirck Smith

[several lines lost] At a session, present: the honorable lord director general Petrus Stuyvesant, the lord councilor La Montagne and Capt. Brian Nuton.

The director general and war councilors having heard and seen the claim of the fiscal Nicasius de Sille against Dirck Smits, ensign, presently detained for trading some arms, which he, prisoner, says but does not prove, with consent of the lords directors although against their general orders, brought over and traded two to the wilden and the rest sold to the soldiers; also, that he, prisoner, with one Nicolaes Velthuysen, corporal, opened at his house, at least had opened in his house and in his presence, a certain small chest of a soldier who was stationed in the fatherland; upon which opening at his house was missing from the same: three new shirts, a pair of new shoes and two cheeses, as can be seen in more detail by the testimony and judgment of the fiscal. Whereupon, the aforesaid Dirck Smith, ensign, having been heard, requested mercy, the matter was reviewed by the war council [crijgs raade] and everything examined what might serve as evidence, find the matter of great consequence that certainly would merit public correction and punishment as an example to others; however, with regard to the aforesaid Smith’s long and good service to the Company, according to the reports of the lords directors, the formidable war council, upon the humble request of the prisoner, wanting to show mercy in place of justice, have decided not to devalue the aforesaid prisoner’s merit before the Company, but rather to discharge him from his service and to order him to depart with the first ships and hereby condemn him to restore the missing things from the small chest and to a fine of 6 months’ wages, dismissing the fiscal’s further demands. Thus sentenced and condemned in Fort Amsterdam, dated as above.