At the February 29, 1648, session of the Salem Court eight cases were tried. A Gloucester man was fined for cursing, saying, "There are the brethren, the divil scald them." Four servants were fined for breaking the Sabbath by hunting and killing a raccoon in the time of the public exercise to the disturbance of the congregation. If the animal had taken to the deep woods instead of staying near the meetinghouse the servants might have had their fun without paying for it. A Marblehead man was fined for sailing his boat loaded with hay from Gloucester harbor, on the Lord's Day, when the people were going to the morning exercise. Nicholas Pinion, who worked at the Saugus Iron works, was presented for absence from meeting four Lord's Days together, spending his time drinking, and profanely; and Nicholas Russell of the same locality was fined for spending a great part of one Lord's day with Pinion in drinking strong water and cursing and swearing. He also had been spending much time with Pinion's wife, causing jealousy in the family; and the lady in question, having broken her bond for good behavior, was ordered to be severely whipped. The other cases were for swearing, in which the above named lady was included; for being disguised with drink; and for living from his wife. And so the Court ended.

A curious instance of Sabbath breaking occurred at Hampton in 1646. Aquila Chase and his wife and David Wheeler were presented at Ipswich Court for gathering peas on the Sabbath. They were admonished. The family tradition has it that Aquila returned from sea that morning and his wife, wishing to supply a delicacy for dinner, fell into grave error in thus pandering to his unsanctified appetite.

While we are discussing matters relating to the Sabbath and to the church it may be well to allude to the ministry. It has been shown that the first concern of the Court of Assistants was a provision for the housing and care of the ministry. Much the larger number were godly men actuated by a sincere desire to serve their people and to preserve their souls. But many of them were men, not saints, and so possessed of men's passions and weaknesses. While all exercised more or less influence over the communities in which they lived, yet the tangible result must have been negative in some instances. Take for example the small inland town of Topsfield, settled about 1639. Rev. William Knight rendered mission service for a short time early in the 40's and a dozen years later Rev. William Perkins moved into town from Gloucester. He had been one of the twelve who settled the town of Ipswich in 1633; afterwards he lived at Weymouth where he was selectman, representative to the General Court, captain of the local military company and also a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He also was schoolmaster in 1650 and the next year appears at Gloucester as minister, from which place he soon drifted into Court. Cross suits for defamation and slander were soon followed by the presentment of Mrs. Holgrave for unbecoming speeches against Mr. Perkins, saying "if it were not for the law, shee would never come to the meeting, the teacher was so dead ... affirming that the teacher was fitter to be a ladys chamberman, than to be in the pulpit."

Mr. Perkins removed to Topsfield in 1656. The next year he tried to collect his salary by legal process and again in 1660. Three years later a church was organized and their first minister was settled. He was a Scotchman—Rev. Thomas Gilbert. Soon Mr. Perkins was summoned to Salem Court where Edward Richards declared in court before Mr. Perkins' face, that the latter being asked whither he was going, said, to hell, for aught he knew. Of course Mr. Perkins denied the testimony. Later in the same year he was fined for excessive drinking, it appearing that he stopped at the Malden ordinary and called for sack. But goody Hill told him that he had had too much already and Master Perkins replied, "If you think I am drunk let me see if I can not goe," and he went tottering about the kitchen and said the house was so full of pots and kettles that he could hardly go.

But what of Mr. Gilbert. Three years after his settlement Mr. Perkins appeared in Court and presented a complaint in twenty-seven particulars "that in public prayers and sermons, at several times he uttered speeches of a high nature reproachful and scandalous to the King's majestie & his government." He was summoned into Court and bound over in £1000 to the next General Court where eventually he was solemnly admonished publicly in open court by the Honored Governor. With twenty-seven particulars, could a Scotchman restrain his tongue? Mr. Gilbert could not, and shortly Mr. Perkins brought two complaints of defamation of character. Mr. Gilbert also soon developed a love of wine for it appears by the court papers that one sacrament day, when the wine had been brought from the meetinghouse and poured into the golden cup, Mr. Gilbert drank most of it with the usual result, for he sank down in his chair, forgot to give thanks, and sang a Psalm with lisping utterance. He was late at the afternoon service, so that many went away before he came and Thomas Baker testified "I perceived that he was distempered in his head, for he did repeat many things many times over; in his prayer he lisped and when he had done to prayer, he went to singing & read the Psalm so that it could not be well understood and when he had done singing he went to prayer again, and when he had done he was going to sing again, but being desired to forbear used these expressions: I bless God I find a great deal of comfort in it; and coming out of the pulpit he said to the people I give you notice I will preach among you no more." His faithful wife testified that his conduct was due to a distemper that came upon him sometimes when fasting and in rainy weather. The following April he was again before the Court charged with many reproachful and reviling speeches for which he was found guilty and sharply admonished and plainly told "that if he shall find himself unable to demean himself more soberly and christianly, as became his office, they do think it more convenient for him to surcease from the exercise of any public employment." The stubborn Scot refused to submit and affixing a defiant paper to the meetinghouse door he deserted his office for three successive Sabbaths, when his exasperated people petitioned the Court to be freed from such "an intollerable burden" and so the relation ceased but not until further suits and counter suits had been tried for defamation, slander, and threatened assault.

His successor was Rev. Jeremiah Hobart, a Harvard graduate, who preached for a while at Beverly and found difficulty in collecting his salary. He remained at Topsfield eight years and during that time became a familiar figure at the County Courts, because of non-payment of salary, for cursing and swearing, and for a damaging suit for slander exhibiting much testimony discreditable to him. Even his brother ministers and the churches were not free from his reproachful and scandalous speeches so he at last was dismissed and two years later was followed by a godly man, Rev. Joseph Capen of Dorchester, who enjoyed a peaceful pastorate of nearly forty years.

The severe penalties of the English legal code were much modified in the Bay Colony but public executions continued until the middle of the nineteenth century and were usually more or less a public holiday. The condemned was taken in a cart through the streets to the gallows. Not infrequently a sermon was preached by some minister on the Sunday previous to the execution and speeches from the gallows always thrilled the crowd. The execution of pirates drew many people from some distance. Several Rhode Island murderers were executed and afterwards hung in chains. The gibbeting of the bodies of executed persons does not seem to have been general.[91]

While executions by burning took place in Europe, and Salem is sometimes accused of having burned witches at the stake, there are but two instances, so far as known, when this extreme penalty was inflicted in Massachusetts. The first occurred in 1681 when Maria, the negro servant of Joshua Lamb of Roxbury willfully set fire to her master's house, and was sentenced by the Court to be burned alive. The same year Jack, a negro servant, while searching for food set fire to the house of Lieut. William Clark of Northampton. He was condemned to be hanged and then his body was burnt to ashes in the same fire with Maria, the negress. The second instance of inflicting the penalty of burning alive occurred at Cambridge in the fall of 1755, when Phillis, a negro slave of Capt. John Codman of Charlestown, was so executed. She poisoned her master to death by using arsenic. A male slave Mark, who was an accomplice was hanged and the body afterwards suspended in chains beside the Charlestown highway where it remained for nearly twenty years,[92] Why was the woman deemed more culpable than the man in such instances of poisoning? The old English law so provided and at a later date, under Henry VIII, poisoners were boiled alive in oil. The last execution in Massachusetts for the crime of arson occurred on Salem Neck in 1821 when Stephen Merrill Clark, a Newburyport lad, fifteen years of age, paid the penalty. He had set fire to a barn in the night time endangering a dwelling house.

Ten years before the adoption of the "Body of Liberties," adultery became a capital crime in accordance with the Mosaic law. The first case was one John Dawe, for enticing an Indian woman. He was severely whipped, and at the next session of the General Court, the death penalty was ordered for the future. When we consider the freedom of manners of the time, the clothing worn by the women, the limited sleeping accommodations and the ignorance of the servants, it is remarkable that the penalty was inflicted in so few cases. The records are full of cases of fornication, uncleanness, wanton dalliance, unseemly behaviour, unchaste words, and living away from wife, and the more so during the earlier years. Possibly, the juries may have thought the penalty too severe and found the parties guilty only, of "adulterous behavior," which happened in Boston in 1645. This followed a case of the previous year where a young woman had married an old man out of pique and then received the attentions of a young man of eighteen. They both were hanged.

The Court Records of the County of Essex always must have a curious interest because of the witchcraft cases. But the first execution in Massachusetts for witchcraft did not take place in Salem, but in Boston, in 1648, when Margaret Jones of Charlestown was hanged. It was shown that she had a malignant touch, that she produced deafness, practiced physic, and that her harmless medicines produced violent effects. She foretold things which came to pass and lied at her trial and railed at the jury. The midwives found that mysterious excrescence upon her, and for all these crimes she was hanged, and as a proof from Heaven of the justice of her taking off there was a great tempest in Connecticut on the very hour she was executed.

But Essex County court records show several witchcraft cases during the first twenty-five years following the settlement. In September, 1650, Henry Pease of Marblehead, deposed that he heard Peter Pitford of Marblehead say that goodwife James was a witch and that he saw her in a boat at sea in the likeness of a cat, and that his garden fruits did not prosper so long as he lived near that woman, and that said Pitford often called her "Jesable." Erasmus James, her husband, promptly brought suit for slander, and at the next Court another suit for defamation by which he received 50s. damages. The court records show that this Jane James had previously made her appearance, for in June, 1639, Mr. Anthony Thatcher complained that she took things from his house. She and her husband were bound for her good behavior and "the boys to be whipped by the Governor of the Family where they had offended." Six years later, in September, 1645, John Bartoll said in open court that he could "prove Jane James a common lyer, a theif & a false forsworn woman," and a year later, in September, 1646, Thomas Bowen, and his wife, Mary, testified that Jane James spoke to William Barber in Bowen's house in Marblehead and Barber said, "get you out of doors you filthy old Baud or else I will cuttle your hide, you old filthy baggage," & he took up a firebrand but did not throw it at her. Peter Pitford's accusation was not the only one for in the following year John Gatchell said that Erasmus James's wife was an old witch and that he had seen her going in a boat on the water toward Boston, when she was in her yard at home. But Erasmus promptly brought suit in the Salem court and recovered a verdict in his favor.

There are several other cases before 1655. In October, 1650, Thomas Crauly of Hampton sued Ralph Hall for slander, for saying he had called Robert Sawyer's wife a witch.

John Bradstreet, a young man of Rowley, was presented at Court in 1652 for having familiarity with the devil, witnesses testifying that Bradstreet said that he read in a book of magic and that he heard a voice asking him what work he had for him to do, and Bradstreet answered "go make a bridge of sand over the sea, go make a ladder of sand up to Heaven and go to God and come down no more." There was much palaver but the Court showed common sense and Bradstreet was ordered to be fined or whipped for telling a lie.

In 1653 Christopher Collins of Lynn brought suit against Enoch Coldan for slander, for saying that Collins' wife was a witch and calling her a witch. The judgment however was for the defendant. Another accusation was promptly squelched in the fall of the same year.

Edmond Marshall of Gloucester unwisely stated publicly that Mistress Perkins, Goodey Evans, Goodey Dutch and Goodey Vincent were under suspicion of being witches. Their husbands at once brought suit for defamation of character and the verdict in each case was, that the defendant should make public acknowledgment within fourteen days in the meetinghouses at Salem, Ipswich and Gloucester.

To sentence a culprit to expiate his crime before the congregation in the meetinghouse was a common thing. The publicity, in theory, induced shame and thus served as a future deterrent. To sit in the stocks and then make public acknowledgment before the congregation was a favorite penalty. Sometimes the offender was ordered to stand at the church door with a paper on his hat inscribed with the crime he had committed. If for lying, a cleft stick might ornament his tongue. Whipping was the most frequent penalty, closely followed by the stocks, and after a time imprisonment became more common. The bilboes were used only in the earliest period. The use of the stocks and whipping post was discontinued in 1813 and not a single example seems to have survived in either museum or attic. The pillory was in use in State Street, Boston, as late as 1803, and two years before, John Hawkins stood one hour in the pillory in what is now Washington Street, Salem, and afterwards had one ear cropped—all for the crime of forgery. Branding the hand or cheek was also inflicted, and Hawthorne has made famous another form of branding, the wearing prominently upon the clothing, an initial letter of a contrary color, symbolizing the crime committed. This penalty was inflicted upon a man at Springfield, as late as October 7, 1754, and the law remained in force until February 17, 1785. As early as 1634 a Boston drunkard was sentenced to wear a red D about his neck for a year.[93]

Massachusetts did not purge her laws from these ignominous punishments until 1813 when whipping, branding, the stocks, the pillory, cutting off ears, slitting noses, boring tongues, etc., were done away with.

There lived in Salem, nearly three centuries ago, a woman whose story is told by Governor Winthrop and the records of the Quarterly Courts. She was, in a sense, a forerunner of Anne Hutchinson and we may fancy at heart a suffragette. Her story gives you an outline picture of the manners of the times in a few details. Her name was Mary Oliver and her criminal record begins in June, 1638. Governor Winthrop relates: "Amongst the rest, there was a woman in Salem, one Oliver, his wife, who had suffered somewhat in England by refusing to bow at the name of Jesus, though otherwise she was conformable to all their orders. She was (for ability of speech, and appearance of zeal and devotion) far before Mrs. Hutchinson, and so the fitter instrument to have done hurt, but that she was poor and had little acquaintance. She took offence at this, that she might not be admitted to the Lord's supper without giving public satisfaction to the church of her faith, etc., and covenanting or professing to walk with them according to the rule of the gospel; so as upon the sacrament day she openly called for it, stood to plead her right, though she were denied; and would not forbear, before the magistrate, Mr. Endecott, did threaten to send the constable to put her forth. This woman was brought to the Court for disturbing the peace in the church, etc., and there she gave such premptory answers, as she was committed till she should find surities for her good behavior. After she had been in prison three or four days, she made means to the Governor and submitted herself, and acknowledged her fault in disturbing the church; whereupon he took her husband's bond for her good behavior, and discharged her out of prison. But he found, after, that she still held her former opinions, which were very dangerous, as, (I) that the church is the head of the people, both magistrates and ministers, met together and that these have power to ordain ministers, etc. (II) That all that dwell in the same town, and will profess their faith in Christ Jesus, ought to be received to the sacraments there; and that she was persuaded that, if Paul were at Salem, he would call all the inhabitants there saints. (III) That excommunication is no other but when Christians withdraw private communion from one that hath offended." September 24, 1639, this Mary Oliver was sentenced to prison in Boston indefinitely for her speeches at the arrival of newcomers. She was to be taken by the constables of Salem and Lynn to the prison in Boston. Her husband Thomas Oliver was bound in £20 for his wife's appearance at the next court in Boston.

Governor Winthrop continues: "About five years after, this woman was adjudged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates. She stood without tying, and bore her punishment with a masculine spirit, glorying in her suffering. But after (when she came to consider the reproach, which would stick by her, etc.) she was much dejected about it. She had a cleft stick put on her tongue half an hour for reproaching the elders."

March 2, 1647-8, Mary Oliver was fined for working on the Sabbath day in time of public exercise; also for abusing Capt. Hathorne, uttering divers mutinous speeches, and denying the morality of the Sabbath. She was sentenced to sit in the stocks one hour next lecture day, if the weather be moderate; also for saying "You in New England are thieves and Robbers" and for saying to Mr. Gutch that she hoped to tear his flesh in pieces and all such as he was. For this she was bound to good behavior, and refusing to give bond was sent to Boston jail, and if she remained in the court's jurisdiction was to answer to further complaints at the next Salem Court.

It appears from depositions that she went to Robert Gutch's house in such gladness of spirit that he couldn't understand it, and she said to some there, not members, "Lift up your heads, your redemption draweth near," and when reminded what she already had been punished for, she said that she came out of that with a scarf and a ring.

November 15, 1648, Mary Oliver for living from her husband, was ordered to go to him before the next court, and in December she brought suit against John Robinson for false imprisonment, taking her in a violent manner and putting her in the stocks. She recovered a judgment of 10s. damages. The following February Mary Oliver was again presented at Court for living from her husband, and in July, having been ordered to go to her husband in England by the next ship, she was further enjoyned to go by the next opportunity on penalty of 20 li.

November 13, 1649, Mary Oliver was presented for stealing goats, and a month later she was presented for speaking against the Governor, saying that he was unjust, corrupt and a wretch, and that he made her pay for stealing two goats when there was no proof in the world of it. She was sentenced to be whipped next lecture day at Salem, if the weather be moderate, not exceeding twenty stripes. Capt. William Hathorne and Mr. Emanuel Downing were to see the sentence executed. At the same court George Ropes complained that Mary Oliver kept away a spade of his and she was fined 5s.

February 28, 1649-50, Mary Oliver thus far had escaped the second whipping, for at her request Mr. Batter asked that her sentence be respited, which the Court granted "if she doe go into the Bay with Joseph Hardy this day or when he goeth next into the Bay with his vessell" otherwise she was to be called forth by Mr. Downing and Capt. Hathorne and be punished. If she returned, the punishment was to hold good.

The next day Mary Oliver's fine was remitted to the end that she use it in transporting herself and children out of this jurisdiction within three weeks. And there ended her turbulent career in the town of Salem, so far as the Court records show.

Until comparatively recent times New England shipping sailed the seas in frequent danger of attack by pirate vessels. Before the town of Boston was settled, Capt. John Smith, "the Admiral of New England," wrote: "As in all lands where there are many people, there are some theeves, so in all Seas much frequented, there are some Pyrats," and as early as the summer of 1632, one Dixey Bull was plundering small trading vessels on the Maine coast and looting the settlement at Pemaquid. Shipping, sailing to and from England, was obliged to run the gauntlet of the Dutch and French privateers and the so-called pirates sailing out of Flushing and Ostend made several captures that affected the fortunes of the Boston traders. In 1644, the Great and General Court sitting in Boston, granted a commission to Capt. Thomas Bredcake to take Turkish pirates—the Algerines—who were a constant danger to vessels trading with Spain. John Hull, the mint-master who made the "pine tree shillings," had a brother Edward, who went a-pirating in Long Island Sound and after dividing the plunder made for England.

It was the treaty of peace between England and Spain, signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668, that contributed largely to the great increase of piracy in the West Indies and along the New England coast. The peace released a great many men who found themselves unable to obtain employment in merchant ships and this was particularly true in the West Indies where the colonial governors had commissioned a large number of privateers. It was but a step forward to continue that fine work without a commission after the war was over and to the mind of the needy seaman there was very little distinction between the lawfulness of one and the unlawfulness of the other. The suppression of buccaneering in the West Indies happened not long after and many of these adventurers raised a black flag and preyed upon the ships of every nation. The operation of the Navigation Acts also led to insecurity on the high seas and eventually to outright piracy; and so it came about that the pirate, the privateer, and the armed merchantman, often blended the one into the other.

The first trial and execution of pirates in Boston took place in 1672. Rev. Cotton Mather, the pastor of the North Church, Boston, in his "History of Some Criminals Executed in this Land," relates the story of the seizure of the ship Antonio, off the Spanish coast. She was owned in England and her crew quarrelled with the master and at last rose and turned him adrift in the ship's longboat with a small quantity of provisions. With him went some of the officers of the ship. The mutineers, or pirates as they were characterized at the time, then set sail for New England and on their arrival in Boston they were sheltered and for a time concealed by Major Nicholas Shapleigh, a merchant in Charlestown. He was also accused of aiding them in their attempt to get away. Meanwhile, "by a surprising providence of God, the Master, with his Afflicted Company in the Long-boat, also arrived; all, Except one who Dyed of the Barbarous Usage.

"The Countenance of the Master, who now become Terrible to the Rebellious Men, though they had Escaped the Sea, yet Vengeance would not suffer them to Live a Shore. At his Instance and Complaint, they were Apprehended; and the Ringleaders of this Murderous Pyracy, had sentence of Death Executed on them, in Boston."

The three men who were executed were William Forrest, Alexander Wilson, and John Smith. As for Major Shapleigh; he was fined five hundred pounds, which amount was afterwards abated to three hundred pounds because of "his estate not being able to beare it."

The extraordinary circumstances of this case probably induced the General Court to draw up the law that was enacted on October 15, 1673. By it piracy became punishable by death according to the local laws. Before then a kind of common law was in force in the Colony based upon Biblical law as construed by the leading ministers. Of course the laws of England were theoretically respected, but Massachusetts, in the wilderness, separated from England by three thousand miles of stormy water, in practice actually governed herself and made her own laws.

In 1675, the Court of Assistants found John Rhoade and certain Dutchmen guilty of piracy on the Maine coast and they were sentenced to be hanged "presently after the lecture." Just then, King Philip went on the warpath and all else, for the time, was forgotten in the fearful danger of the emergency. Before long the condemned men were released, some without conditions and others were banished from the Colony. It is fair to say, however, that politics and commercial greed were sadly mixed in this trial.

A bloody fight occurred at Tarpaulin Cove, near Woods Hole, in October, 1689, between a pirate sloop and a vessel sent out from Boston in pursuit. The pirate was taken and after trial the leader, Capt. Thomas Pound, late pilot of the King's frigate Rose, then at anchor in the harbor, Thomas Hawkins, a well-connected citizen of Boston, Thomas Johnston of Boston, "a limping privateer," and one Eleazer Buck, were sentenced to be hanged. When they were on the gallows Governor Bradstreet reprieved all save Johnston—"Which gave great disgust to the People; I fear it was ill done," wrote Judge Sewall. The same day one William Coward was hanged for piracy committed on the ketch Elinor, while at anchor at Nantasket Road.

The capture in Boston in 1699, of William Kidd, Joseph Bradish, born in Cambridge; Tee Wetherly, James Gillam, and other men concerned with the Madagascar pirates, created much excitement, but these men were tried in England and gibbetted at Hope Point on the Thames.

In June, 1704, a trial for piracy was held in the Old State House, and the testimony and proceedings were afterwards published. Captain John Quelch had sailed from Marblehead, the previous year, in command of a brigantine commissioned as a privateer. Instead of proceeding against the French off Newfoundland he had sailed south and on the coast of Brazil had captured and plundered several Portuguese vessels. While he was absent, a treaty of peace between England and Portugal had been signed and when Quelch returned to Marblehead harbor he learned that he had piratically taken various vessels belonging to subjects of "Her Majesty's good Allie," the King of Portugal. His arrest and trial followed and with six of his ship's company he was sentenced to be hanged on a gallows set up between high- and low-water mark off a point of land just below Copp's hill. The condemned were guarded by forty musketeers and the constables of the town and were preceded by the Provost Marshal and his officers. Great crowds gathered to see the execution. Judge Sewall in his diary comments on the great number of people on Broughton's hill, as Copp's hill was called at that time.

"But when I came to see how the River was cover'd with People, I was amazed: Some say there were 100 Boats. 150 Boats and Canoes, saith Cousin Moodey of York. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Capt. Quelch and six others for Execution from the Prison to Scarlet's Wharf, and from thence in the Boat to the place of Execution about midway between Hanson's [sic] point and Broughton's Warehouse. When the scaffold was hoisted to a due height, the seven Malefactors went up: Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing upon the Boat. Ropes were all fasten'd to the Gallows (save King, who was Repriev'd). When the scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Screech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place."

Capt. Samuel Bellamy, in the pirate ship Whydah, was wrecked on Cape Cod near Wellfleet, the spring of 1717, and 142 men were drowned. Six pirates who reached shore were tried in Boston and sentenced to be hanged "at Charlestown Ferry within the flux and reflux of the Sea." After the condemned were removed from the courtroom the ministers of the town took them in hand and "bestowed all possible 'Instructions upon the Condemned Criminals; often Pray'd with them; often Preached to them; often Examined them; and Exhorted them; and presented them with Books of Piety.'" At the place of execution, Baker and Hoof appeared penitent and the latter joined with Van Vorst in singing a Dutch psalm. John Brown, on the contrary, broke out into furious expressions with many oaths and then fell to reading prayers, "not very pertinently chosen," remarks the Rev. Cotton Mather. He then made a short speech, at which many in the assembled crowd trembled, in which he advised sailors to beware of wicked living and if they fell into the hands of pirates, to have a care what countries they came into. Then the scaffold fell and six twitching bodies, outlined against the sky, ended the spectacle.

In 1724 the head of Capt. John Phillips, the pirate, was brought into Boston in pickle. He had been killed by "forced men" who had risen and taken the pirate ship. Only two of his company lived to reach Boston for trial and execution, and one of them, John Rose Archer, the quartermaster, was sentenced to be "hung up in Irons, to be a spectacle, and so a Warning to others." The gibbet was erected on Bird Island which was located about half-way between Governor's Island and East Boston. In the Marshal's bill for expenses in connection with the execution appears the following item:

"To Expenses for Victuals and Drink for the Sherifs, Officers and Constables after the Executions att Mrs. Mary Gilberts her Bill £3.15.8."

The enforcement of the English statute relating to piracy was variously interpreted in the Colonial courts, and local enactments sometimes superseded it in actual practice. Previous to 1700, the statute required that men accused of piracy should be sent to England to be tried before a High Court of Admiralty. Pound, Hawkins, Bradish, Kidd, and other known pirates were accordingly sent in irons to London for trial. But the difficulties and delays, to say nothing of the expense, induced Parliament by an Act of 11 and 12 William III, to confer authority by which trials for piracy might be held by Courts of Admiralty sitting in the Colonies. On the other hand, the Massachusetts Court of Assistants in 1675 found John Rhoades and others, guilty of piracy. This was in accordance with an order adopted by the Great and General Court on October 15, 1673. When Robert Munday was tried at Newport, R. I., in 1703, it was by a jury in the ordinary criminal court, in open disregard of the King's commission.

The Courts of Admiralty held in the Colonies were composed of certain officials designated in the Royal commission, including the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, the Judge of the Vice-Admiralty for the Province, the Chief Justice, the Secretary, Members of the Council, and the Collector of Customs. Counsel was assigned to the accused to advise and to address the Court "upon any matter of law," but the practice at that time was different from the present. Accused persons in criminal cases were obliged to conduct their own defence and their counsel were not permitted to cross-examine witnesses, the legal theory at the time being that the facts in the case would appear without the necessity of counsel; that the judge could be trusted to see this properly done; and the jury would give the prisoner the benefit of any reasonable doubt.

Trials occupied but a short time and executions generally took place within a few days after the sentence of the Court was pronounced. During the interval the local clergy labored with the condemned to induce repentance, and all the terrors of hell were pictured early and late. Usually, the prisoners were made the principal figures in a Sunday spectacle and taken through the streets to the meetinghouse of some prominent minister, there to be gazed at by a congregation that crowded the building, while the reverend divine preached a sermon suited to the occasion. This discourse was invariably printed and avidly read by the townsfolk, so that few copies have survived the wear and tear of the years. From these worn pamphlets may be learned something of the lives and future of the prisoners as reflected by the mental attitude of the attending ministers.

The day of execution having arrived, the condemned prisoners were marched in procession through the crowded streets safely guarded by musketeers and constables. The procession included prominent officials and ministers and was preceded by the Marshal of the Admiralty Court carrying "the Silver Oar," his emblem of authority. This was usually about three feet long and during the trial was also carried by him in the procession of judges to the courtroom where it was placed on the table before the Court during the proceedings.

Time-honored custom, and the Act of Parliament as well, required that the gallows should be erected "in such place upon the sea, or within the ebbing or flowing thereof, as the President of the Court ... shall appoint," and this necessitated the construction of a scaffold or platform suspended from the framework of the gallows by means of ropes and blocks. When an execution took place on land, that is to say, on solid ground easily approached, it was the custom at that time to carry the condemned in a cart under the crossarm of the gallows and after the hangman's rope had been adjusted around the neck and the signal had been given, the cart would be driven away and the condemned person left dangling in the air. In theory, the proper adjustment of the knot in the rope and the short fall from the body of the cart when it was driven away, would be sufficient to break the bones of the neck and also cause strangulation; but in practice this did not always occur.

When pirates were executed on a gallows placed between "the ebb and flow of the tide," the scaffold on which they stood was allowed to fall by releasing the ropes holding it suspended in mid-air. This was always the climax of the spectacle for which thousands of spectators had gathered from far and near.

Not infrequently the judges of a Court of Admiralty had brought before them for trial a pirate whose career had been more infamous than the rest. A cruel and bloody-minded fellow fit only for a halter,—and then the sentence to be hanged by the neck until dead would be followed by another judgment, dooming the lifeless body of the pirate to be hanged in chains from a gibbet placed on some island or jutting point near a ship channel, there to hang "a sun drying" as a warning to other sailormen of evil intent. In Boston harbor there were formerly two islands—Bird Island and Nix's Mate—on which pirates were gibbeted.[94] Bird Island long since disappeared and ships now anchor where the gibbet formerly stood. Nix's Mate was of such size that early in the eighteenth century the selectmen of Boston advertised its rental for the pasturage of cattle. Today every foot of its soil has been washed away and the point of a granite monument alone marks the site of the island where formerly a pirate hung in chains beside the swiftly flowing tides.

What constitutes a crime? It all depends upon the minds of the people and oftentimes upon the judges. Manners and crimes vary with the centuries as do dress and speech. Here are some of the crimes penalized by Essex County Courts before the year 1655, viz.: eavesdropping, meddling, neglecting work, taking tobacco, scolding, naughty speeches, profane dancing, kissing, making love without consent of friends, uncharitableness to a poor man in distress, bad grinding at mill, carelessness about fire, wearing great boots, wearing broad bone lace and ribbons. Between 1656 and 1662 we find others, viz.: abusing your mother-in-law, wicked speeches against a son-in-law, confessing himself a Quaker, cruelty to animals, drinking tobacco, i.e., smoking, kicking another in the street, leaving children alone in the house, opprobrious speeches, pulling hair, pushing his wife, riding behind two fellows at night (this was a girl, Lydia by name), selling dear, and sleeping in meeting. The next five years reveal the following, viz.: breaking the ninth commandment, dangerous well, digging up the grave of the Sagamore of Agawam, going naked into the meetinghouse, playing cards, rebellious speeches to parents, reporting a scandalous lie, reproaching the minister, selling strong water by small measure, and dissenting from the rest of the jury.

With such minute supervision of the daily life of the colonists it can readily be appreciated that it was an age for gossiping, meddlesome interference with individual life and liberty and that in the course of time nearly every one came before the courts as complainant, defendant or witness. There were few amusements or intellectual diversions and they could only dwell on the gossip and small doings of their immediate surroundings. But all the while there was underlying respect for law, religion and the rights of others. The fundamental principles of human life were much the same as at the present day, and men and women lived together then as now and as they always will—with respect and love.

Are the Times Improving?

Edward Johnson's estimate in his Wonder-working Providence supposes in 1643, a population in Massachusetts of about 15,000. There were then 31 towns in the Bay Colony, of which 10 were within the limits of the present Essex County. The population of these 10 towns was probably about 6,000. They were located for the most part along the shore line. The same geographical area in 1915 had a population of about 360,000, or exactly 60 times as great as the population in 1643, 272 years before.

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