[249] Meade’s Old Churches, i. 18, 361, 385.
[250] It is difficult to obtain exact data. My impression is derived from study of the statutes and from general reading.
[251] It is authoritatively stated in the Virginia Magazine, i. 347, that from the time of the Company down to the time of the Revolution, “there is no record of any duel in Virginia.” In the thirteen volumes of Hening I find no allusion to duelling; for the mention of “challenges to fight” in such a passage as vol. vi. p. 80, clearly refers to chance affrays with fisticuffs at the gaming table, and not to duels. Yet in 1731 Rodolphus Malbone, for challenging Solomon White, a magistrate, “with sword and pistol,” was bound over in £50 to keep the peace: see Virginia Magazine, iii. 89.
[252] Virginia Magazine, i. 128. A woman named Eve was burned in Orange County in 1746 for petty treason, i. e. murdering her master. Id. iii. 308. For poisoning the master’s family a man and woman were burned at Charleston, S. C., in 1769. Id. iv. 341. For petty treason a negro woman named Phillis was burned at the stake in Cambridge, Mass., Sept. 18, 1755: see Boston Evening Post, Sept. 22, 1755; Paige’s History of Cambridge, p. 217. For riotous murder in the city of New York 21 negroes were executed in 1712, several of whom were burned and one was broken on the wheel; and again in 1741, in the panic over an imaginary plot, 13 negroes were burned at the stake: see Acts of Assembly, New York, ann. 1712; Documents relating to Colonial History of New York, vol. vi. ann. 1741. There may have been other cases. These here cited were especially notable.
[253] Prof. M. C. Tyler (History of American Literature, i. 90) quotes a statement of Burk (History of Virginia, Petersburg, 1805, vol. ii. appendix, p. xxx.), to the effect that in Princess Anne County a woman was once burned for witchcraft. But Burk makes the statement on hearsay, and I have no doubt he refers to Grace Sherwood, who between 1698 and 1708 brought divers and sundry actions for slander against persons who had called her a witch, but could not get a verdict in her favour! She was searched for witch marks and imprisoned. It is a long way from this sort of thing to getting burned at the stake! Mrs. Sherwood made her will in 1733, and it was admitted to probate in 1741. See William and Mary College Quarterly, i. 69; ii. 58; iii. 96, 190, 242; iv. 18.—There is a widespread popular belief that the victims of the witchcraft delusion in Salem were burned; scarcely a fortnight passes without some allusions to this “burning” in the newspapers. Of the twenty victims at Salem, nineteen were hanged, one was pressed to death; not one was burned. See Upham’s History of Witchcraft and Salem Village, Boston, 1867, 2 vols.
[254] Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist. v. 286.
[255] Fox-Bourne’s Life of John Locke, i. 203.
[256] The Fundamental Constitutions are printed in Locke’s Works, London, 1824, ix. 175-199. An excellent analysis of them is given by Prof. Bassett, “The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina,” J. H. U. Studies, xii. 97-169; see, also, Whitney, “Government of the Colony of South Carolina,” Id. xiii. 1-121.
[257] Hening, i. 380.
[258] He is commonly called a Quaker, but the tradition is ill supported. See Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 33.