Document: Discharge of several soldiers who have taken up farms and settled in the country

At the session the petitions of several soldiers, requesting passport and discharge from their service because (so they claim) their time of duty has expired, having been submitted and read.

After carrying out pro and con debates concerning the matter, it was finally decided that some of the aforesaid soldiers have been previously permitted, on certain conditions, to tend to their own private business, and that accordingly they had settled here and there in the countryside, and begun to establish plantations, from which they were called up for the southern expedition (with the promise that they be allowed to return to their land after the aforesaid expedition), which plantations, as they have not been cultivated, shall revert to their wild and desolate state to the great loss and detriment of the planters, whose women and children grow destitute and become a burden to the company and the worthy settlers.

Therefore, the honorable director general and councilors, in order to prevent this as much as possible, have resolved to allow some soldiers, who previously have had freedom on certain conditions, to tend to their business, and those whose time of duty has expired, to grant a passport and clearing of accounts. Ady ut supra at the session held at Fort Amsterdam in New Netherland.