part of her body being stripped naked, and two rods placed in her hand; to be afterwards conducted, in that wise, outside the city gates, and banished the province for the term of thirty years, with costs.' Moreover, Iva Dircksen, for adultery, was 'to be conducted to the place where justice is administered, and there to witness the punishments inflicted this day, and then to be banished for the term of fifty years.'"[827] [Footnote 826: O'CALLAGHAN, _Laws and Ordinances_, 495.] [Footnote 827: COWLEY, _Our Divorce Courts_, 33, 34; citing _New York Colonial MSS., 1630-1664_: Dutch: Part I, Vol. VIII, 1049, 1051, 1653, 1055, 1057.] Breach of promise suits are not infrequent. Sometimes it is the faithless swain who is prosecuted for his broken troth; as in 1669, when Elizabeth Stedwill called Jan Hendrix van Gunst to account;[828] or when Maria Besems seeks pecuniary satisfaction for the like offense of Boudewyn van Nieuwland.[829] Sometimes it is the maid who asserts the woman's privilege, if not her legal right, to change her mind; as in the case of Pieter Koch _v._ Annetie Cornelissen van Vorst, which took place in New Amsterdam, 1653-54, and may serve as an example. On February 24 the defendant's stepfather delivers her "papers" to the burgomasters and schepens, who order that each party shall have a copy of the other's papers, and that the defendant shall appear in person. Then the case drags along for nearly a year, over no less than eight sessions of the court, before the pleadings and other preliminaries are finished. At last, on February 19, 1654, the papers are sent by the lower court to the director-general and council for advice. Apparently in consequence of this advice the documents are then submitted to a special committee of three men, who hand in their report on the 18th of the following May. Upon this report the decision of the burgomasters and schepens was based, though they resolved to keep the judgment in "abeyance" until "requested" by the parties to the suit. From the records it appears that there was an oral promise of marriage; that the plaintiff had given presents to his betrothed; and that she, because of his "misbehaviour," was not disposed to keep her engagement. The court, however, decided that a promise once given should remain in force. Neither person without the consent of the other and the approbation of the court should marry. The defendant was allowed to keep her presents until marriage or until, with the knowledge of the magistracy, the betrothed should set each other free. Costs were to be borne equally by the parties.[830] [Footnote 828: _Records of New Amsterdam_, VI, 203.] [Footnote 829: GERARD, _The Old Stadt Huys_, 27. _Cf. ibid._, 26, 27, where cases of breach of promise are mentioned in 1642, 1644, 1653, and 1656.]