Note 11 — V THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL—FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS

The murderer Billington, sad to relate, was one of those who signed the historic compact on board the Mayflower. He was tried, condemned to death, and executed by his brethren in accordance with their primitive criminal procedure. At first, trials in the little colony were conducted by the whole body of the townsmen, the Governor presiding. In 1623 trial by Jury was established, and subsequently a regular code of laws was adopted. The capital offences were treason, murder, diabolical conversation, arson, rape, and unnatural crimes. Plymouth had only six sorts of capital crime, against thirty-one in England at the accession of James I, and of these six it actually punished only two, Billington's belonging to one of them. The Pilgrims used no barbarous punishments. Like all their contemporaries they used the stocks and the whipping-post, without perceiving that those punishments in public were barbarizing. They inflicted fines and forfeitures freely without regard to the station or quality of the offenders. They never punished, or even committed any person as a witch. Restrictive laws were early adopted as to spirituous drinks, and in 1667 cider was included. In 1638 the smoking of tobacco was forbidden out-of-doors within a mile of a dwelling-house or while at work in the fields; but unlike England and Massachusetts, Plymouth never had a law regulating apparel.