---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 14:42:47 -0800
From: Eve McLaughlin <eve(a)varneys.demon.co.uk>
To: patricia(a)echonyc.com
Subject: PML Search Result matching carman andnot obit
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Source: LONDON-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: Re: genealogical legal help needed
22nd March, 1783: On Tuesday last the assizes for this county, before
Baron
Eyre, ended at Thetford at the above assizes, Abraham Carman and Henry Cabell,
Sen., for burgiariously breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Abigail
Humbling at Alburgh, received sentence of death, and ordered for execution . .
.and Henry Cabell, jun received sentence of death, but afterwards reprieved.
The
prisoners who were convicted, returned thanks to the grand jury for half-a-
guinea, which they received by their governor.
As frequently, they were convisted of a crime for which the death
sentence was normal, but they were later reprieved - does it say if this
was commuted to transportation, again pretty normal? If not, then fresh
evidence may have been produced which showed the men were innocent as
charged.
The Grand jury (the richer freeholders who normally reviewed the cases
for trial and just stated if there was a case to answer, leaving lesser
freeholders to sit there and listen to the evidence and decide on it)
seem to have been involved in the final stages of this case.
What may have happened is that they were sympathetic with the two
accused and had a whip round for money to provide food for them.
Normally, the poorer prisoners got a very basic diet of bread and soup,
and very rare extras. If they had no firneds willing to bring in other
food, they may have looked rather hungry, and perhaps have been sick
with gaol fevere, so presented a pathetic sight in dock.
If the Grand Jury suspected a fix, and that the men had been
imprisoned awaiting trial for weeks or months, yet were now regraded as
innocent, possibly because of fresh evidence, then sympathy could have
caused them to give the jail governor money either for food or for the
usual payment to him for release.
--
Eve McLaughlin
Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians
Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society
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