Now, happily, capital punishment is restricted in this Commonwealth and in England to two offences only; and while, here, even high treason is punishable simply by imprisonment, in England, strong efforts have been repeatedly made, and recently with a fair prospect of ultimate success, to induce parliament to imitate our example and take away the death penalty from this the highest crime known to the common law.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Mark signed his deposition here, and the entry, "continued," was made at the end of the sheet; the next sheet beginning, "Mark's Examination, continued."
[2] Sic.
[3] This is assumed to be the case, since both these clerks officially signed papers in this very case, though, from the loose custom which gradually obtained with the clerks of our highest judicial court, of not recording their appointments, it is impossible to verify this statement by the record. Samuel Tyley, Jr., and Benjamin Rolfe were sworn in as joint clerks of this court, Feb. 26, 1718, and Samuel Winthrop was clerk as early as June, 1745, and Nathaniel Hatch as early as September, 1752.
[4] Judge Lynde makes a memorandum of this trial, and of the particulars of the executions, in his diary under date of July 9, 1755.—Lynde Diaries (privately printed, 1880), p. 179.—Eds. of Proceedings.
[5] An error. It should have been "eighteenth."
[6] Comm. book iv. ch. 32, p. 403.
[7] Hist. Mass. Bay, vol. iii. p. 287, n.