Introduction.            xxix

      At the June, 1666, Provincial Court, Thomas Morrice of Herring Creek of
     Anne Arundel County was tried for the murder of Francis Cheater, a laborer,
     whom he had killed at the plantation of Mr. Samuel Chew of Herring Creek.
     He pleaded not guilty and asked for a jury trial. The jury, of which Thomas
     Hynson was foreman, found him “guilty of Manslaughter”. He thereupon
     “prayed his Clergy, Which the Cort allowed was burnt in the hand, and bound
     to appeare at the next Provinall Cort in the meane time to be of his good be-
     haviour”. The evidence showed that Morrice had struck Cheater twenty blows
     with a cudgel valued at twopence and had also kicked him upon his privy mem-
     bers from which he had died ten days later (pp. 110-111).
      A woman charged with infanticide either came perilously near being hanged,
     or for all we know may actually have been executed. Joane Colledge of Matta-
     pany-Sewell, Calvert County, spinster, was brought before the December, 1669,
     Provincial Court. Here she was indicted and tried for assaulting and killing a
     girl infant to which she had just given birth. She pleaded not guilty and “putt
     herself upon the Country”. John Morecroft, the attorney-general, acted as
     prosecutor. After six witnesses were heard “and the said Joane Colledge being
     required to make her defense thereunto being heard likewise”, the jury, of
     which Thomas Cosden was foreman, brought in a verdict of “guilty of murder”.
     The court, after suspending sentence for a day “until further advised con-
     cerning the premises before judgment be passed”, sentenced her to be hanged.
     Three of the women who had testified as witnesses, together with four other
     women, “and sundry other persons exhibited to the Court on the behalf e of
     the said Joane Colledge a Petition for the suspending of the execution of the
     said Joane Colledge untill such tyme as his Lopp the Lord Proprietary's further
     Will and pleasure whould be knoene touching the granting of her pardon.
     Whereupon the Court Ordered that the Prisoner Joane Colledge should be
     repreived till the eighteenth day of October next”. Governor Charles Calvert
     was on a visit to England at this time and the court doubtless was awaiting his
     return (pp. 598-599). As no further reference to Joane appears in the follow-
     ing years, we are left in some uncertainty as to whether she was pardoned by
     the Governor on his return, or was hanged at the expiration of her reprieve,
     October 18, 1671. Her name does not appear in the records of the Court of
     Chancery among those pardoned by the Governor.
      Another case of infanticide has features of human interest. Jane Crisp
     (Crips), a Talbot County spinster, was tried before a jury at the October,
     1666, session, charged with having exposed to the cold and thus killed an
     infant to which she had just given birth. Tried before a jury, she was found
     not guilty (pp. 123-4), but, as was usual, was ordered to pay to the sheriff of
     Talbot County his charges at the rate of thirty pounds of tobacco a day and
     other charges (p. 153). Her case had previously come before the Talbot
     County court at the June, 1666, session and had been referred to the Pro-
     vincial Court. A witness declared that Jane Crisp “was delivered of A Child
     withoutt doores in the plantation and shee would nott bee knowne that shee
     had A Child, butt deponant went and fetched A Midwife, and Two women