‘Illinois to wit.
‘To Richard Winston, Esqre, Sheriff in chief of the District of Kaskaskia.
‘Negro Manuel, a Slave, in your custody, is condemned by the Court of Kaskaskia, after having made honorable fine at the door of the church, to be chained to a post at the water side, and then to be burnt alive, and his ashes scattered, as appears to me by record. This sentence you are hereby required to put in execution, on tuesday next at 9 o’clock in the morning, and this shall be your warrant.
‘Given under my hand and seal at Kaskaskia, the 13th day of June, in the 3rd year of the Commonwealth.’
‘To Capt. Nicolas Janis.
‘You are hereby required to call upon a party of your militia to guard Moreau, a slave condemned to execution, up to the town of Kohos. Put them under an officer. They shall be entitled to pay, rashions and refreshment during the time they shall be upon duty, to be certifyed hereafter by you.
‘I am, Sir, your hble servant,
‘John Todd.
‘15th June 1779.’
Virginia, I believe, can only boast of one witch, and her case is not very widely known. Princess Anne is the southernmost county of Virginia, bounded on the north by Chesapeake Bay, and on the east by the Atlantic. Lynhaven Bay is on the Chesapeake River; and there lived, in the days of ‘good Queen Anne,’ a young woman named Grace Sherwood, who was somewhat shy in her dealings with her neighbours, probably because they invested her with uncanny powers, and even said that she had voyaged across the Atlantic, as far as the Mediterranean, in an eggshell; that on her arrival, at the end of her journey, she had been so pleased with the smell of the rosemary she had found growing there, that she brought back some of the plants with her, and set them about her cottage. These evil rumours were brought to the ears of the authorities, and Grace Sherwood was haled before the justices assembled at Princess Anne Court House; and the entry of her examination, etc., in the court record is as follows:
‘Princess Annes.