HISTORY OF BROOKLYN. 117

Carel van Beauvois, to whom they have hereby appropriated a sum of fl. 150, besides a free dwelling; and whereas the Petitioners are apprehensive that the aforesaid C. v. Beauivois would not and cannot do the work for the sum aforesaid, and the Petitioners are not able to promise him any more, therefore the Petitioners, with all humble and proper reverence, request your Honors to be pleased to lend them a helping hand, in order thus to receive the needful assistance. Herewith, awaiting your Honors’ kind and favorable answer, and commending ourselves, Honorable, wise, prudent, and most discreet Gentlemen, to your favor, we pray for your Honors God's protection, together with a happy and prosperous administration unto Salvation. Your Honors’ servants and subjects, The Schout and Schepens of the Village aforesaid. By order of the same,

“(Signed) Adriaen Hegeman, Secretary.”

In answer to this petition, the Director and Council were graciously pleased to say that they would “pay fifty guilders, in wampum, annually, for the support of the precentor (voorsanger) and schoolmaster in the village of Breuckelen.”1

Fac-simile of the signature of Carel de Beauvois.

Carel de Beauvois, who was thus commissioned to fulfil the multifarious duties of court-messenger, bell-ringer, grave-digger, chorister, reader, and schoolmaster of Breuckelen, is described by Riker as Òa highly respectable and well-educated French Protestant, who came from Leyden, in Holland. He was of a family whose name and origin were probably derived from the ancient city of Beauvais, on the river Therin, to the northwest of Paris; but there is reason to believe that he himself was a native of Leyden. He arrived at

1 N. Y. Col. MSS., ix. 678.