June 4, 1642. ... At the same general court there fell out a great business upon a very small occasion. Anno 1636, there was a stray sow in Boston, which was brought to Captain Keayne: he had it cried divers times, and divers came to see it, but none made claim to it for near a year. He kept it in his yard with a sow of his own. Afterwards one Sherman's wife, having lost such a sow, laid claim to it, but came not to see it, till Captain Keayne had killed his own sow. After being showed the stray sow, and finding it to have other marks than she had claimed her sow by, she gave out that he had killed her sow. The noise hereof being spread about the town, the matter was brought before the elders of the church as a case of offence; many witnesses were examined, and Captain Keayne was cleared. [The case was then brought before the county court],--when, upon a full hearing, Capt. Keayne was again cleared, and the jury gave him £ 3 for his costs. [Keayne then recovers £ 20 damages for slander.] Story [friend of "Sherman's wife"[75]], upon this, searcheth town and country to find matter against Captain Keayne ... and got one of his witnesses to come into Salem court and to confess there that he had foresworn himself [in the former trial]; and upon this he petitions in Sherman's name to this _general court_ to have the cause heard again; which was granted, and the best part of seven days were spent in examining witnesses and debating of the [case]. And yet it was not determined; for there being nine magistrates and thirty deputies, no sentence could by law pass without the greater number of both, which neither [side] had; for there were for the plaintiff two magistrates and fifteen deputies, and for the defendant [Keayne] seven magistrates and eight deputies.... There was great expectation in the country, by occasion of Story's clamours against him, that the cause would have passed against the captain, but falling out otherwise, gave occasion to many to speak unreverently of the court, especially of the magistrates, and the report went, that their negative voice had hindered the course of justice, and that these magistrates must be put out, that the power of the negative voice might be taken away. June 12, 1643. ... The sow business not being yet digested in the country [even Bellingham, ex-governor, urging a new trial without a negative voice for the magistrates,--Winthrop gives over three pages here to a review of the controversy. Then follows:]