Throughout New England, Rhode Island alone excepted, persons guilty of incest--that is to say, of uniting within the degrees of consanguinity or affinity legally forbidden--were stigmatized with an initial letter precisely as in the case of adultery. An act of Massachusetts in 1692, "for the punishing of capital offenders," makes this offense a felony punishable with death.[539] Because some of the "articles" dealing with capital crimes, among which is incest, "were conceived in very uncertain and doubtful terms," and because in such cases the penalty of death was not "conformable to y^e Laws of England," the act was disallowed by the privy council in August, 1695.[540] However, in June of the same year a new act for the prevention of incestuous marriages had been adopted by the general court; and this remained in force during the provincial era. By it the forbidden degrees are enumerated in harmony with the English ecclesiastical law. For violation of its provision exactly the same penalty in the same words is imposed as by the statute of 1694 for the punishment of adultery, except that in place of _A_ a capital _I_ is to be continuously worn.[541] This act of 1695 was adopted by New Hampshire in 1714,[542] and by Connecticut in 1702, the provision regarding the initial letter reappearing in the statute books of the latter commonwealth until 1821.[543] [Footnote 539: _Acts and Resolves_, I, 56 (Oct. 29).] [Footnote 540: See the "Letter from the Privy Council," _Acts and Resolves_, I, 56, note; and compare DAVIS, _The Law of Adultery_, 12, 13.] [Footnote 541: _Acts and Resolves_, I, 208-10.] [Footnote 542: By 13 Anne: in _Acts and Laws_ (Portsmouth, 1761), 55, 56; and _ibid._ (Portsmouth, 1771), 42, 43.] [Footnote 543: Revision of 1702, 73; _Acts and Laws_ (New London, 1715), 74-76; _ibid._ (New London, 1750), 145; _ibid._ (New Haven, 1769), 145; _ibid._ (New London, 1784), 136.] In Massachusetts the legal stigma for incest was often imposed by judicial sentence. As already noticed by Davis, such a sentence in 1743 was executed upon Andrew Fleming, of Groton, who had first been set on the gallows for an hour and whipped forty stripes.[544] Hitherto no other examples of wearing the capital _I_ seem to have been discovered. But a careful search in the manuscript records of the superior court for the period ending in 1780 has brought to light five additional cases. The first of these occurred in 1729 and the last in 1759. In every instance the culprit is punished with rope and gallows, stripes, and the scarlet letter.[545]