Document: Letter of Jacob Jansen Stoll to Director Stuyvesant

No. 43.

Honorable General Pieter Stuyvesand.

Your letter concerning Herman Jacobsz has been received. It is true that I owe him one hundred guilders; to wit, the wheat at three guilders per skipple and not otherwise (nothing else) and whereas he refers to Frerick Flipsz that I should pay him the same sum; to wit: one hundred guilders, I am always ready to deliver it at the rate of three guilders. As to the rest, I do not know anything about it.

Sir, I send herewith in your honor's yacht fifty skipples of wheat and also one hundred skipples of oats. Please excuse me this time; I have done the best I could, as I have some more wheat to thresh, besides I have fallen a little behind with the last crop and I am trying to liquidate my debts, with the help of God Almighty, so that I shall easily send your honor some grain in a month or six weeks, but not now, for we have already been invested with corn moths. Besides, Sir, please do not take it amiss, if I ask, whether the people of Fort Orange have leave to sell openly brandy and distilled waters to the the barbarous Indian people, as we, not only I, but all the inhabitants of the Great Soopis [ Esopus ] see them daily drinking, while they say that they get it from there; no good can come from it, but it must tend to the ruin of the whole country. They have also caused great inconveniences to Jacob Adriaensen on the strand, while they were intoxicated. Closing herewith and commending your honor to the protection of the Almighty, who may grant good health and a long life to your honor and your honor's family, Amen. I am and remain

On the 19th of April anno 1658.

[ ADDRESSED: ]

To the Honorable, Wise and Very Rigorous, His Honor Pieter Stuyvesandt, General on behalf of the Chartered West India Company at the Manatans in Fort Amsterdam.

Jacob Jansz S[ toll ]