Document: Sentence of Tobias Feake, sheriff of Flushing, for having written the Flushing Remonstrance

[ Whereas Tobias Feakx, a resident of Vlissingen on Long Island now a prisoner, has confessed and acknowledged ] that he received [ an order from the honorable director general not to admit, lodge, and entertain in the said village ] anyone of the heretic and abominable sect named the Quakers, but, in contempt of the said order and the formerly promulgated and renewed edicts, has had the audacity to be a leader and instigator in drafting a seditious, mutinous, and detestable pamphlet, signed by himself and his accomplices, and by him, prisoner, handed over to the lord general, in which they justify the abominable sect of the Quakers, who scorn both the political authorities and the teachers of God’s word, and undermine the political order and the religious service, and justify and maintain and absolutely demand that all sects, especially the aforesaid heretic and abominable sect of the Quakers, shall and must be tolerated and admitted, which directly contradicts and violates the aforesaid order and edicts of the director general and councilors; which order and edicts, according to his oath, office, and duty as a subordinate officer of the lord general and schout in the said village of Vlissingen, he should have maintained and observed with all possible means; which he not only failed to do, but he even transgressed and violated the order and edicts, which matter, as an example to others, deserves to be punished severely, [ yet, considering the humble petition of the prisoner Feakx, confessing his wrongdoing and promising hereafter to avoid such errors. ] Therefore, the director general and councilors of N: Netherland, administering justice in the name of the high and mighty lords States General of the United Netherlands and the honorable lords directors of the Chartered West India Company, first dismiss the aforesaid Tobias Feecx from his office as schout of the aforesaid village of Vlissingen and hereby banish him from the province of New Netherland, or to pay a fine of two hundred guilders to be properly applied (if he will keep his promise), together with the legal costs. Done at Fort Amsterdam in N: Netherland, the 28th of January 1658.[i]

P. Stuyvesant Pieter Tonneman