Note 13 — Chapter VII

A collateral ancestor of my own, the Reverend Archibald Riddell, had the advantage of a similar proceeding a century before. Being apprehended for taking part in the uprising of the Covenanters in Scotland he was given (or sold) with others to a Scottish Laird who chartered a vessel and proceeded to take his human chattels to America for sale. The plague broke out on the ship, the Laird and his wife died of it as did some of the crew. When the ship reached New Jersey, there being no master, the "slaves" escaped up country. The Laird's son-in-law and personal representative came to America and claimed Riddell and others. The governor called a jury to determine whether they were slaves and the jury promptly found in their favor. Riddell preached in New Jersey until the Revolution of 1688 made it safe for him to return to Scotland. Juries in such cases are liable to what Blackstone calls "pious perjury." All this practice was based upon the common law proceedings when a claim was made of villenage. When a person claimed to be the lord of a villein who had run away and remained outside the manor unto which he was regardant, he sued out a writ of neif, that is, de nativo habendo. The sheriff took the writ and if the nativus admitted that he was villein to the lord who claimed him, he was delivered by the sheriff to the lord of the manor; but if he claimed to be free, the sheriff should not seize him but the Lord was compelled to take out a Pone to have the matter tried before the Court of Common Pleas or the Justices in Eyre, that is, the assizes. Or the alleged villein might himself sue out a writ of libertate probanda: and until trial of the case the lord could not seize the alleged villein. The curious will find the whole subject dealt with in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, pp. 77 sqq.