The Council having been expressly summoned by the president of this meeting, and in the further members of that meeting a communication having been made, how it had been reported to him the morning before by the lieutenant of this garrison, that 9 stx., both the Company's slaves and Indians convicts from their respective modest posts, were missing, without it being known for certain whether they abandoned them on land in fugitives, or whether it is most suspected with suspicion that they must have transported them to the moored French ship, La Royale,90 the latter being attributed with all the more credence, since the captain and head of the militia of this garrison, E. Jeronimus Cruse, also informs the Council that he had been approached yesterday by a Compton slave to request a license to sail aboard the aforementioned French ship to practice the Roman Catholic faith with the clergy there, a matter which the aforementioned captain has refused to do. This gives the Council all the more reason to suspect that the aforementioned missing slaves may be aboard the aforementioned French ship; after careful deliberation, it has first been approved and understood that the designated director of Surat, Monsr. Pillavoine, in order to express his indisposition, granted permission to recite it here on land, as the highest authority on that soil, by three commissioned members from this meeting, together with the Secretary of this College, in polite but serious terms to the aforementioned Monsr. to request de Pillavoine to establish order within his shipboard, so that all the slaves of the Company, who may have transported her thither and kept her hidden there, might be delivered up to us again, just as was practiced with us to all foreign European nations in good alliance with our state, also to verify this by alleging the most recent example that occurred in the presence of the Extraordinary Ambassador of His Royal Majesty of France, the Count of Chamont91, to the King of Siam of … stx.92 of her sailors, who had put her on probation here, in order to recover whom and deliver them up to her, all questionable diligence had been exercised upon the departure of the aforementioned. French ships had first fallen into our hands, and, at the order of the High Honorable Sir Hendrik Adria[e]n van Reede, Lord of Mijdrecht & Co., representing the Dutch East India Company, with an express vessel, were already at sea outside the Bay, were sent for and delivered to them. We could not doubt that they would come and do the same in the regalia of our slaves. We ordered the appointed members of their committee and received a response, in writing, to submit a report to this meeting, in order to take further action on this matter, as they may deem appropriate after reviewing the matter.
Thus done and resolved in the Castle of Good Hope, date above.
[Signed:] ANDS. THE MAN.
[Signed:] J. CRUSE.
[Signed:] A. v. BREUGEL.
[Signed:] L. v. STEL.
[Signed:] CORNLS. LINNES.
[Signed:] J. H. BLUM.