Volume 57, Preface 52 View pdf image (33K) |
lii Introduction. Daniel Jenifer, for harboring a runaway servant Catherine How. The defen- dant asked a jury trial, doubtless because of the justices' rather biased attitude in such cases in favor of the master, but the verdict in this case was against the defendant “for three dayes entertaineing” the servant contrary to the act of the Assembly, but whether three days, or more, was claimed by the plaintiff is not revealed by the record (pp. 243, 303, 306). One's sympathy is generally with those who harbored, or “entertained”, a runaway servant, as this was usually done from kindness of heart and and the knowledge that runaways generally came from the homes of harsh masters. When Edmund Lindsey sued Thomas Sprigg, one of the justices of Calvert County, for unlawfully harboring, or “entertaining”, the former's servant, Robert Leeds, both parties to the suit agreed to refer the matter to Mr. Thomas Notley and Dr. John Peerce for arbitration, with the understanding that if they found against Sprague he would pass his note for 5000 pounds of tobacco to Lindsey (p. 374). The decision of the arbitrators is not reported. The case of John Corbett, a servant suffering from an old leg ulcer, has interesting features. Corbett was bound over by the court to serve Dr. John Stansby for two years, conditional upon a successful cure. The story has been told in the section dealing with medical matters (pp. xlvii-xlviii, 182, 368-9). Augustine Herman, lord of Bohemia Manor and Maryland's first cartog- rapher, was complained against by Francis Hill at the December, 1670, court, in that Hill's runaway servant George Taylor had been apprehended at Her- man's, who had refused to deliver him over unless the owner passed a bill for 1400 pounds of tobacco, which the complainant declared was a great exaction and contrary to law. The court ordered the payment of 400 pounds of tobacco and no more to Herman, and the delivery of the servant to Hill (pp. 581). At the December, 1670, court John Griffith, an indentured servant, who declared that he had served his full term, complained that his master Thomas Paine, by a false receipt which “youre poore Ignorant Petitioner putt his hand unto”, detained the corn and clothes by custom due him. The court ordered Paine to pay Griffith the “Come & Clothes & other things according to the Custome of the Country”, and an execution against Paine was issued (p. 579). An instance of a freeman being sentenced to serve a sheriff for a year to thus work out fees due by him to the sheriff, was perhaps regarded as prefer- able to imprisonment by that officer until the debt was paid. Be this as it may, at the December, 1670, court it was ordered that Charles Vincent “in discharge and accquittall from payinge of the said Fees” justly due to Randall Revell (the then Sheriff of Somerset County), shall serve Revell for one full year (p. 254). On another occasion the Court held that a Sheriff could not execute against a man, who had been his former prisoner, for imprisonment costs incurred several years before, and declared that the sheriff should have held his prisoner until these costs were paid (p. 117). Joseph Thompson was indicted for hog stealing in a case in which another servant and his master Peter Bawcomb were also involved. Thompson whose indictment was quashed, was sold by the sheriff of Dorchester County to another master for three years to pay his imprisonment costs (p. 601-603). After having served the new master for |
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Volume 57, Preface 52 View pdf image (33K) |
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