Document: Petition of the convention, requesting an answer to their remonstrance

To the Noble, Honorable Director-General and Council of New Netherland.On the 11th of this month the representatives from the respective villages of Gravesande, Vlissingen, Middelburgh, Heemsteede, Amesfoort, Breuckelen and Midwout, as well as the mayors and schepens of the city of New Amsterdam who were convened at the City Hall of this city, submitted to your honors a remonstrance and petition to which they received in reply the following day a demand for copies so that a well-considered response might be given. When the aforesaid assembly responded to this in writing on the same day, the director-general and council, instead of giving a decision on the petition, were pleased to charge the assembly with illegality because of a pretended lack of judicial authority for the villages of Midwout, Amesfoort and Breuckelen, which consequently could not send properly authorized representatives; and to protest against them, which they consider strange, especially as the aforesaid villages were not written to by the mayors and schepens except with the foreknowledge of the honorable director-general and council. Moreover, the assembly was begun with no other aim than the service and protection of the country, the maintenance and preservation of the freedoms, privileges and property of its inhabitants; not as an unlawful usurpation of the authority of the aforesaid honorable director-general and council, on the contrary, to prevent and deter lawlessness. And because the laws of nature give to all men the right to assemble for the welfare and protection of their freedom and property; therefore, the representatives of the aforesaid assembly, as well as the mayors and schepens, respectfully request that your honors, after declaring the aforesaid convention legal, be pleased to reply to the points submitted in their remonstrance, while they are willing to admit to their meetings, with all due respect, and allow to share in and advise on all business, which may come up, all such persons whom your honors may decide to commission. In case of refusal (which they hope does not happen) they would find themselves compelled to protest against your honors for all the inconveniences which have befallen or may befall the country in general or in particular, and they intend to address themselves to their High Mightinesses, the lords States-General, as their sovereigns and to the chartered W.I.C. as their patroons, in order to submit to them a remonstrance on such matters as they believe are required for the service and welfare of the country. Your honors humble servants.

Arent van Hattem
Martin Krigier
P.L. van der Grift
Willem Beecqman
Pieter Wolfersz
Geo. Backxter
Robert Coo
Elbert Elbertsz
Thomas H. Hasseard
John Hickx
Thomas Spicer
Poulus vander Beecq
Fredrick Lubbersz
Thomas Swartwout
J. Hubbard
Jan Strycker
Tobias Feke
Dirck van Schelluyne Rights: This translation is provided for education and research purposes, courtesy of the  New York State Library Manuscripts and Special Collections, Mutual Cultural Heritage Project. Rights may be reserved. Responsibility for securing permissions to distribute, publish, reproduce or other use rest with the user. For additional information see our Copyright and Use Statement Source: New York State Archives. New Netherland. Council. Dutch colonial council minutes, 1638-1665. Series A1809. Volume 5.