[Footnote 513: The "elders" being appealed to promptly decided that the three persons then lying in prison should be put to death, "if the law had been sufficiently published." But for the reasons named in the text the general court thought it was "safest that these persons should be whipped and banished": WINTHROP, _Hist. of New England_, I, 309; _Mass. Col. Rec._, I, 198, 202, 203, 225. Compare the excellent monograph of DAVIS, _The Law of Adultery and Ignominious Punishments_, 6-11, who gives the details regarding this case and the law of 1631; and calls attention to the English act of 1650, which classes incest and adultery among felonies, citing thereon PIKE, _Hist. of Crime in England_, II, 182; and BLACKSTONE, _Commentaries_, IV, 64.] [Footnote 514: March, 1637-38. "The law against adultery made by the Particular Court in October, 1631, is confirmed, that whosoever lieth with another man's wife, both shall be punished by death; and this is to be promulgated."--_Mass. Col. Rec._, I, 225. This law was confirmed in 1640, the act of 1631 being then formally repealed: _ibid._, I, 301.] [Footnote 515: In 1643-44, at a quarter court held in Boston, "James Brittanie being found guilty of adultery with Mary Latham, he was condemned to death. Mary Latham being found guilty of adultery with James Brittanie, she was condemned to death."--_Record of the Court of Assistants of Mass. Bay Colony_, 1641-44 (from the Barlow MS.) in WHITMORE'S _Bibliographical Sketch of the Laws of Mass._, xlii. According to WINTHROP, _Hist. of New England_, II, 157-59, these persons were executed.] [Footnote 516: DAVIS, _The Law of Adultery_, 15, 16.]