xxiv                 Introduction.

         At the March, 1669/70, court, Captain James Neale, a wealthy planter,
       prosecuted, and sought damages from, three former servants of his, although
       at the time of trial no longer in his service, for killing and eating, about a year
       previously, a number of his hogs, and for stealing and drinking “a great quan-
       tity” of his wine. The evidence is presented at great length and in amusing
       detail. The entire servant population of the plantation seemingly had a won-
       derful time. The hogs were killed and eaten on several occasions at one of
       Neale's plantation quarters by these three servants and by other fellow servants,
       and the entertainments, which occurred about Christmas time, were enlivened
       by the lavish use of their master's wine. This was stolen from his “Wine
       house”, by the use of the key of the corn loft, which, luckily for the celebrants,
       also opened the wine house. The parties must have been hilarious as those who
       took part in them not only drank as much as they pleased at the wine house, “but
       also they Carried with them up to the Quarter two or three pales full of Wine
       every week for three weekes att least the paile Containeing two or three Gal-
       lons.” Sentinels were posted to see that they were not caught. There must
       have been some extenuating circumstances as the jury found damages against
       them for only 225 pounds of tobacco, and costs of 66o pounds. Although there
       were twelve such “trespasses” only four hogs had been killed while the three
       defendants were in Neale's service, the rest having been killed after they
       had become free (pp. 251-254).
         Two damages suits were instituted for slander on account of assertions or
       insinuations of hog-stealing. One was tried before the court and one before
       a jury. In the first case, heard at the January, 1670/1, court, neighbors were
       declared to have been advised by Francis Fernley to have a care to mark their
       hogs, as John Mould, the plaintiff in the slander suit, “was often abroad to hunt
       wild hoggs.” The court found no cause for action and granted Fernley a non-
       suit (p. 311). This same John Mould, at the November, 1672, court, was
       bound over to keep the peace and to appear at the next court, but whether this
       had any bearing upon his difficulties with Fernley nearly a year before, is not
       disclosed, nor do we again hear of the matter (p. 441). In the second case a
       defendant was charged with calling the plaintiff a hogstealer. He denied having
       done so, and asked a jury trial. The jury found no cause for action and
       the court granted a nonsuit with costs to the plaintiff (p. 507). Upon the
       complaint of a prominent planter and one of the justices, Humphrey Warren,
       a certain Hugh French was ordered at the January, 1670/1, court, to give
       security for his good behavior, but the record does not disclose what Warren
       had done to have aroused French's ire against him (p. 281).
         A suit for 1500 pounds of tobacco for personal damages, brought by Thomas
       Price at the August, 1672, court, against Captain James Neale, discloses the
       details of a free-for-all fight between Price on the one hand and Captain James
       Neale and his son James on the other. Witnesses had seen the son at his father's
       plantation fighting with Price. James junior called for help, the father struck
       Price two or three times and pushed him off the boy. Another witness declared
       that Price had “pulled much hair from the head of the said James”, the son.
       A jury awarded to Price 400 pounds of tobacco as damages and costs of 150