Being Concerned in said murder on the 18th day of March, 1777. Ordered that the Sheriff take the said Jimmy from hence to the Place of execution where he shall be tycd to a stake and Burnt alive. Given under our hands this 5th day of March, 1778. Justices of the Peace : William Gause, John Bell, Thos Sessions.
Freeholders : Aaron Roberts, John Stanton, Needham Gause, Jas. X Ludlow. (his mark) State of No. Carolina : Brunswick County. We the undernamed persons being summoned as Justices of the Peace and freeholders of the County aforesaid to hold a court for the Tryall of a negro man slave named James the property of Mrs. Sarah Dupre for the murder of Mr. Henry Williams of Lockwood Folly do value the said slave James at the sum of Eighty Pounds Procklamation Money. Given under our hands this 5th day of March, 1778. Justices of the Peace : Freeholders : William Gause, Aaron Roberts, John Bell, John Stanton, Thos. Sessions. Needham Gause, his Jas. X Ludlow, mark. The journals of the legislature show that the assessed compensation, " Eighty Pounds Procklamation Money," was voted to Mrs. Sarah Dupree, the owner of the slave. There is a similar record in Granville County, showing that on the 21st October, 1773, Robert Harris, Jonathan Kittrell and Sherwood Harris, justices; and Thomas
Critcher, Christopher Harris, Samuel Walker and William Hunt, freeholders, tried and convicted Sanders, a negro slave of Joseph McDaniel, for the murder of William Bryant, and he was sentenced to be burnt alive on the 23d — two days thereafter. Doubtless there are other records of similar proceed ings in other counties, if not destroyed in the lapse of time, but these two will serve as a curious reminder of a bygone age. After 1793 the slave charged with murder became entitled to a trial by a jury of free holders, and one of the most splendid efforts of the late Hon. B. F. Moore was in behalf of a slave tried for murder. His brief in that case and the opinion of the Supreme Court delivered by Judge Gaston will re main enduring monuments of the claim of both to abiding fame. The opinion and brief will be found reported in State i'.
Will, 18 N. C. 121-172. While the circumstances I have attempted to rescue from oblivion may not seem to the credit of the men of that day, it is an histori cal, social and legal fact which will serve to "show the age, its very form and pressure." It is to the credit of the next generation that the statute was repealed by a more hu mane and just one in 1793, and that the latter Act was afterward illustrated by the learning and impartial justice displayed by court and counsel in State v. Will. It iu true of the generations of men as of individuals, that we " rise on stepping-stones of our dead selves to higher things."
LEGAL MEDITATIONS. "17 HAT use to me is " Byles on Bills"? "v For " Jarman on the Law of Wills" I wouldn't give a jackstone. Nor would I give another for "Juries and Jury Trials," nor Coke, Bacon, Parsons, Story, or Fearne, Chitty, Kent, or Blackstone.
