Document: Petition of David Ferera for a writ of appeal from a judgment pronounced by the city court

[ To the great honorable lords director general and high councilors of New Netherland ]

David Ferera, Jew, residing here, makes known with humble reverence how the lords burgomasters and schepenen of this city, at the request of the lord officer and having noted the petitioner’s written answer, whereby he frankly confesses his ignorance of Dutch laws and customs and lack of knowledge of the language, and therefore not knowing to have sinned so greatly as the case has been considered, have been pleased to condemn him, petitioner, to a fine of eight hundred guilders and the costs of the suit, notwithstanding that the lord officer in a civil suit has only concluded and demanded the forfeiture of a small consignment of beaver skins; and whereas he, petitioner, is a person of humble circumstances and limited means, and to satisfy the aforesaid fine would be sufficient to cause his ruin; and as he, the petitioner, is on account of this still in prison, and he by this sincerely declares not to have had the least intention to violate justice, but that the fault arose from his lack of knowledge, and that he therefore feels himself unjustly injured by the sentence, insofar as the same has been pronounced in a civil suit. He therefore humbly requests of your honors to please issue a writ of appeal, with a clause of inhibition, in the usual form, and in the meantime to let him out of prison, offering for this Joseph d’Acosta as sufficient bail, as principal, for the sentence.

Your honors’ obedient [ servants, ] (was signed) Davidt Ferera, Joseph d’Acosta.

The foregoing petition having been read at the session, after due deliberation, the following was added in notation: Let a writ of appeal be issued with prohibition against execution. Done at Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland. Dated as above.