Note 307 — Chapter II · (continued 2)

While they were watching at Boston every tidings of the war from the east and from the west, the gossips were weaving about the trial of Phillis and Mark for the poisoning of their master all the suspicions which unsettle the sense of social security; and when in September the common law of England asserted its dominance, the man was hanged, while the woman was burned, the last instance in our criminal history of this dread penalty for petit treason was recorded. Cf. A. C. Goodell, Jr., in Proceedings Mass. Hist. Soc. (March, 1883), and in a separate enlarged issue of the same paper. It is well not to forget that while in old England at this time there were 160 capital offences, there were less than one tenth as many in Massachusetts. These are enumerated by H. B. Staples in his paper on the Province Laws (1884), p. 10.