Introduction.                xxi




         When no one appeared to charge any other crimes against the prisoners, they
       stood at the bar upon their deliverance, but the Court refused to discharge them.
       “the Crime for wch they were Indicted by apparent circumstances Seemed to
       the Court to have been Really Comitted by them and that the Jury acquitted
       them only for want of some Evidence, that the said” persons must each give
       security in £10 each with two securities at £5 each, to appear at the Provincial
       Court to be held in April 1673, and that they be of good behaviour meantime.
       After that, nothing more is heard of them: the April, 1673, session came and
       went but unless it is included in the unspecified criminal cases on which the
       Court proceeded on April 9, 1673 (post, p. 91), the case was never settled
       finally. There was no grand jury at the April, 1673, session. The action of
       the Court in this exciting case is not easy to understand. They seem to have
       felt that if the lad, Peter Jacobsin, had been able to testify, Robinson would
       have been found guilty. But it was a universal principle of the English com
       mon law that no person could be put twice in jeopardy for the same offence.
       Yet the Court, in holding for another trial a man declared not guilty by the
       jury, and in thus setting aside a not-guilty verdict, was putting him in double
       jeopardy.
         In the seventeenth century and even later, hog stealing was a serious and a
       frequent offense, and the laws against it became progressively more severe.
       The Act of 1650 provided for a penalty against the stealer of twice the value
       to the owner, 200 pounds of tobacco to the informer and 300 pounds to the
       Proprietary (Archives, I, 503-504). In 1662, it was provided that second
       offenders should be branded in the shoulder with an H, and every county court
       was to have the necessary irons (ibid., 455). In 1666 the penalty was made
       barbaric in its severity. A hog stealer —and the law included therein almost
       anyone who killed even unmarked hogs on somebody else's land— upon convic
       tion for the first offense had to stand in the pillory for four hours and then
       to have his ears cropped. He must also pay triple damages to the owner of the
       stolen hogs. For the second offense he —or she— would be branded in the fore
       head with an H and for a third offense he was judged a felon not entitled to
       claim benefit of clergy (Archives, II, p. 278). The law was indeed severe, and
       there are no instances, up to the end of 1675, where it was literally enforced.
       Justinian Gerard, charged on December 19, 1671, with killing and carrying
       away two hogs belonging to John Gouldsmith, had the first indictment quashed
       for insufficiency, but he had to give bond of £50 sterling to appear for trial at
       the next Provincial Court (post, p. 20). He did appear, and he was indicted
       again. When he came into court for trial, he asked for and had John Morecroft
       assigned him as counsel, and Morecroft was one of the leaders of the Pro
       vincial bar. He plead not guilty, and was declared not guilty by the jury, so
       on paying the necessary fees he was discharged (ibid., p. 29). John Griffin,
       charged with stealing a hog from Thomas Wright, did not appear on Febru
       ary 11, 1672, when his case was called, so the recognizances which he and his
       securities had given were estreated or forfeited, and he and they were liable
       to be sued on them (post, p. 58). Griffin appears here no more. Richard
       Meekins of Dorchester County was presented by the grand jury on April 9,