Slaves, we have seen, are now entitled to the benefit of clergy in all cases where it is allowed to any other offenders, except in cases of consulting, advising, or conspiring to rebel, or make insurrection; or plotting or conspiring to murder any person; or preparing, exhibiting, or administring medicine with an _ill_ intent. The same lenity was not extended to them formerly. The act of 1748, c. 31, denied it to a slave in case of manslaughter; or the felonious breaking and entering _any_ house, in the night time: or breaking and entering _any_ house in the day time, and taking therefrom goods to the value of twenty shillings. The act of 1764, c. 9, extended the benefit of clergy, to a slave convicted of the manslaughter of a slave; and the act of 1772, c. 9, extended it further, to a slave convicted of housebreaking in the night time, unless such breaking be burglary; in the latter case, other offenders would be equally deprived of it. But wherever the benefit of clergy is allowed to a slave, the court, besides burning him in the hand (the usual punishment inflicted on free persons) may inflict such further corporal punishment as they may think fit [1794. c. 103.]; this also seems to be the law in the case of free Negroes and mulattoes. By the act of 1723, c. 4, it was enacted, that when _any Negroe_ or _mulattoe_ shall be found, upon due proof made, or _pregnant circumstances_, to have given false testimony, every such offender shall, _without further trial_, have his ears successively nailed to the pillory for the space of an hour, and then cut off, and moreover receive thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, or such other punishment as the court shall think proper, not extending to life or limb. This act, with the exception of the words _pregnant circumstances_, was re-enacted in 1792. The punishment of perjury, in a _white_ person, is only a fine and imprisonment. A slave convicted of hog-stealing, shall, for the first offence, receive thirty-nine lashes: any other person twenty-five: but the latter is also subject to a fine of thirty dollars, besides paying eight dollars to the owner of the hog. The punishment for the second and third offence, of this kind, is the same in the case of a free person, as of a slave; namely, by the pillory and loss of ears, for the second offence; the third is declared felony, to which clergy is, however, allowed. The preceding are the only positive distinctions which now remain between the punishment of a slave, and a white person, in those cases, where the latter is liable to a determinate corporal punishment. But we must not forget, that many actions, which are either not punishable at all, when perpetrated by a white person, or at most, by fine and imprisonment, only, are liable to severe corporal punishment, when done by a slave; nay, even to death itself, in some cases. To go abroad without a written permission; to keep or carry a gun, or other