Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/220

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192
Colonial Courts
[1734

Mrs Susanna Hartley Widow untill he be one and twenty yeares of age & that ye said Mrs Hartly be bound and enter into bond to learne him the trade of a Carpenter or Joyner wthin ye said time. . . .

[November 6.] A Bill of enditemte was Brought agt Wm Shreenes and presented to ye Grand Jury ye Grand Jury finds Billa vera ye Petty Jury was sent out & found ye Prisor guilty of Petty Larceny & so returned ye Bill whereupon he was ordered by the Court to have 30 lashes upon his naked back stript to his wast & sevearly Whipt and be bound to serve for his Phees one yeare and half from this day 9hrs 9th to his Mr John Hatton besides his former Indenture of ffive yeares . . .

A Bill of enditemte was brought agt Robert White & Vincent White his son & presented to ye Grand Jury The Grand Jury finds Billa vera The petty Jury was sent out and they brought their verdict they found ye prisoners guilty of Grand Larceny & they craved the Benefit of ye clargey wch being granted Ordered that they be branded in ye hand wth the letter T : upon ye Brawn of ye left thumbe wch was executed accordingly on Robt White ; ye other reteined to longr Time or be delivered by the Palatines Court . . .

Susana Harris enters for her daughter Sarah her proper Marke a crop & two Slitt on ye left ear & an over keele & an under keele on ye Right ear.

William L. Saunders, editor, The Colonial Records of North Carolina (Raleigh, 1886), I, 392-402 passim.


72. A Prosecution for Criticising Government (1734)

BY JOHN PETER ZENGER (1738)

Zenger was the publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, and was prosecuted for teaching contempt of His Majesty's government. His acquittal is a landmark in the history of the press and of freedom of speech in America. — Bibliography : Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, V, 242; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 105.

'New-York, ss. BE it remembred, That Richard Bradley, Esq ; Attorney General of Our Sovereign Lord the King, for the Province of New-York, who for Our said Lord the King in this Parts Prosecutes, in his own proper Person comes here into the Court of Our said Lord the King, and for Our said Lord the King gives the Court here to understand, and be informed, That John Peter Zenger, late of the City of New-York, Printer, (being a seditious Person, and a