Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II - With an Account of Salem Village and a History of Opinions - on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects by Charles Upham
page 285 of 1066 (26%)
parents reached a point where it became necessary, in the last resort,
to appeal to the protection of the law. After various proceedings, he
was finally sentenced to stand on the ladder of the gallows with a
rope around his neck for an hour; to be severely whipped; committed to
the House of Correction; kept closely at work on prison diet, not to
be released until so ordered by the Court of Assistants or the General
Court; and to pay "a fine to the country of two hundred pounds." It is
stated, that, if the mother of the culprit "had not been overmoved by
her tender affections to forbear appearing against him, the Court must
necessarily have proceeded with him as a capital offender, according
to our law being grounded upon and expressed in the Word of God, in
Deut. xxi. 18 to 21. See Capital Laws, p. 9, ยง 14." Some time
afterward, the General Court, upon his petition, granted him a release
from imprisonment, on condition of his immediate departure from this
jurisdiction; first giving a bond of two hundred pounds not to return
without leave of the General Court or Court of Assistants.

In 1664, four commissioners, Colonel Richard Nichols, Sir Robert Carr,
George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick, Esqs., were sent over by
Charles II. "to hear and determine complaints and appeals in all
causes, as well military as criminal and civil." There had always been
a powerful influence at work in the English Court adverse to New
England. It had been thus far successfully baffled by the admirable
diplomacy of the colonial government and agents. All conflicts of
authority had been prevented from coming to a head by a skilful policy
of "protracting and avoiding." But the restoration of the Stuarts
boded no good to the liberties of the colonies; and the arrival of
these commissioners with their sweeping authority was regarded as
designed to deal the long-deferred fatal blow at chartered rights.
They began with a high hand. The General Court did not quail before
DigitalOcean Referral Badge