xxxii                Introduction.

             a plea of trespass on the case. The facts brought out in this trial, June i8, 1678,
             were the same as those in Royston v. Nichols, except that in the first case the
             verdict is not spoken of as a nonsuit. This trial also went to a jury, but this
             time the jury declared Royston not guilty, and the Court gave him 920 pounds
             of tobacco for his costs, also a high sum (Archives LXVI, pp. 458-459; post,
             pp. 403-405).

               On December 9, 1676, the High Court of Chancery, in the case of Peighen
             against Fulford and Leach, decreed, after two days of hearing, that Leach,
             factor to Fulford, the London merchant, should “forthwith out of the Goods
             Shipped upon the . . . Ruth of London . . . pay the Seamens Wages
             amounting in the whole to the Sume of” £457/16 Sterling, and should also
             pay Thomas Peighen £630 Sterling for ship hire, with £12 interest (Archives
             LI, pp. 473-474). Leach did not pay, but he kept on harassing Peighen. Ac
             cordingly, on April 21, 1677, the Court of Chancery ordered a sequestration
             against all the goods that had come over in the Ruth. The Kent County Com
             missioners were ordered to take possession of all the cargo, wherever found,
             to appraise the goods, and then to turn them over to Peighen to satisfy his
             claim (Archives LI, pp. 201-202). The return was to be made without delay to
             the Court of Chancery. So said the High Court of Chancery. The Kent
             County Commissioners acted without delay, as they were told to do, but they
             made their return to the Provincial Court. The two courts had the same judges
             and the same clerk. On May 9, 1677, they made their report to the Court, and
             signed and sealed it, as they must. Happily, the clerk copied it in full into the
             Court record, happily for it is good reading. Part of it was hardware, espe
             cially nails, from four penny to twenty penny, and rose nails, felling axes and
             wooding axes. There was a bundle of scales, two pair of long steelyards, and a
             smaller pair, as well as a pair of brass scales worth 1 r/. By far the greater part
             of the cargo was clothing or cloth. Two bales of hose held io8 dozen pair,
             from yarn hose at 13/ per dozen to worsted hose at 40/ a dozen. There were
             shoes: men's and women's wooden-heeled shoes, boys' shoes, children's shoes.
             There were women's dresses, fustian frocks at 5/ apiece, painted calico gowns
             at 14/ apiece. There were men's woollen suits, usually moth-eaten, suits of
             kersey and serge and broadcloth and Hallif ax; bales of cloth by the thousand
             yards, much of it moth-eaten. A bale of broadcloth amounting to two hundred
             and one yards had twenty-five yards deducted for moth damage, and another
             bale was even worse. Besides the cargo, the inventory included the wages due
             the seamen. Most of them were paid for the voyage no more than £1/6, and
             the total was L48/4/6 (post, pp. 33-36). A little later the Provincial Court
             decided “here the nineteenth day of June 1677 That the returne of the Seques
             tration is good and valid.”, and presumably the goods were turned over to
             Thomas Peighen, as the Court of Chancery had ordered (Archives LI, p. 202;
             see also Archives LXVI, pp. xxvii-xxxi, 297-302, 307, 372, 371-372).

                      OF A SUICIDE AND OF A FEATHER BED

               For some years John Browne of Salem in New England had had dealings
             in Maryland: February 1, 1663/4 he sold 1676 acres of land on Sassafrax