"The prisoner being set to the bar and arraigned, did plead guilty, and for trial put herself upon God and the country." Her case was immediately moved. One witness, the Alexander Johnson mentioned, testified.
"The jury without going from the Bar say, that they find the prisoner at the bar Guilty of the Felony whereof she stands indicted...."
Just one week later, Sylvia, now a convict, "was called to the Bar, for judgment, and it being demanded of her in the usual manner what she could say for herself why judgment of Death should not now pass against her, according to law, she did produce and plead a pardon of the People of the State of New York, under the Great Seal, bearing test the 31st March, 1784, which was read and allowed, and the Prisoner discharged."
Sylvia was undoubtedly a valuable piece of personal property—valuable enough evidently to make it worth her master's while to urge his claims upon the Governor for clemency.
White offenders did not always fare as well. But for them in the colonial times still occasionally remained that quaint old plea of "benefit of clergy." This lingered on as late as 1784, when the record shows that one John Cullen, having been convicted of forgery,
"ON MOTION of Mr. Attorney-General ... was sent to the Bar for judgment, and it being demanded of him in the usual form what he could say for himself why judgment of death should not pass against him according to Law, he prayed the Benefit of Clergy, which was granted by the Court.
THEREUPON IT WAS ORDERED that the said John Cullen be branded in the brawn of the left Thumb with the letter T in the presence of the court, and that the sheriff execute the order immediately, which was done accordingly."
Benefit of clergy was the historic privilege accorded in England to all priests of being tried only in the ecclesiastical courts for their crimes. Coke says that "it took its root from a constitution of the Pope that no man should accuse the priests of Holy Church before a secular judge." As all common-law felonies (except petty larceny and mayhem) were punishable by death even as late as 1826, and as these felonies included homicide, rape, burglary, arson, robbery and larceny, and all were clergyable, it must have been a prerogative of considerable value to any member of the cloth of lively disposition.
Originally the privilege could be claimed before trial, and ousted the lay courts of any jurisdiction whatever, the right being strictly limited, however, to those who exhibited all the physical attributes and garb of priesthood, having "habitum et tonsuram clericalem," but long before (1350) it was provided that "all manner of clerks, as well secular as religious, shall from henceforth freely have and enjoy the privileges of Holy Church." As a priest's trial in the ecclesiastical courts was hardly more than a matter of form, with rarely any result save that of acquittal, he who could plead his "benefit" was practically immune so far as punishment for his crimes was concerned. In course of time the right was accorded only after conviction in the secular courts.
In 1487 it was provided that every person convicted of a clergyable felony should be branded in the brawn of his thumb, so that mere inspection would reveal second offenders. The letter M stood for murderer and T for thief or forger, as we have seen in Cullen's case. The statute also provided that no person could plead his clergy a second time unless he were actually in orders. Thus as late as 1487 practically any one who could read or write might commit as many crimes, including murder, as he chose, with no fear of punishment save of having to make his purgation, and after that date could, so to speak, have one murder, arson or larceny and escape with branding, while the priest in orders continued free to violate the law to his heart's content. Perhaps this wholesale extension of the privilege was made in the interest of education and as an incentive to literary accomplishment. It certainly put a premium on learning which a mere "degree" could not offer.