this case is the only known instance of the infliction of
the common-law penalty for petit treason, in New England,
and is not known to have been elsewhere reported, the
printers have, at the author's request, struck off, in
pamphlet form, a limited number of impressions for the use
of persons interested in the history of our criminal
jurisprudence, who may not have convenient access to the
serial from which it is taken, or who may desire to preserve
it separately.]

It is not surprising that the execution of a woman, by burning, so
lately as when Shirley was governor,--a period when the province had
greatly advanced in culture and refinement,--should seem to any one
incredible. Indeed, even so critical and thorough a student of our
provincial history as our late distinguished associate, Dr. Palfrey,
once wrote to me inquiring if the rumor of such a proceeding had any
foundation in fact, and if so, whether the execution took place
according to law, or by the impulse of an infuriated mob. It gave me
great satisfaction to be able to settle his doubts on this subject by
referring him to the records of the Superior Court of Judicature,
where the judgment, from which I shall presently read to you, and a
copy of which I sent to him, appears at length.

The subject is important at this day only as serving to define the
nature of the "cruel and unusual punishments" prohibited by the
thirty-first article of the Declaration of Rights, in our state
Constitution, since this mode of punishment, having continued after
the adoption of the Constitution, cannot have been considered by the
framers of that instrument either as "cruel" or "unusual" in the sense
in which they used these words.

The particulars of the crime for which the malefactors, Mark and
Phillis, were executed are briefly as follows: Captain John Codman, a
thrifty saddler, sea-captain, and merchant, of Charlestown, was the
owner of several slaves whom he employed either as mechanics, common
laborers, or house servants. Three of the most trusted of these, Mark,
Phillis, and Phebe,--particularly Mark,--found the rigid discipline of
their master unendurable, and, after setting fire to his workshop some
six years before, hoping by the destruction of this building to so
embarrass him that he would be obliged to sell them, they, in the year
1755, conspired to gain their end by poisoning him to death.

In this confederacy some five