In 1721 Delaware passed “An Act for the Trial of Negroes” the provisions of which were similar to those of the law of Pennsylvania enacted in 1705. Two justices of the peace, “particularly commissionated by the Governor for that service within the respective counties thereof,” and six of the most substantial freeholders of the neighborhood, were to hear, examine, try and determine offenses committed by negro or mulatto slaves, and it was provided that “if any Negro or Mulatto slave ... shall attempt to commit a rape on a white woman or maid, they shall be tried in manner aforesaid, and shall be punished by standing four hours in the pillory at the Court-House on some court day, with both ears nailed to the pillory, and before he be taken down from the same shall have both his ears cut off close to his head.”[247] By an act of June 8, 1751, it became the law of Maryland “that if any slave or slaves shall at any time consult, advise, conspire or attempt to raise any insurrection within this province, or to murder or poison any person or persons whatsoever, or to commit a rape upon any white woman, or to burn any house or houses, and be thereof convict by confession or verdict ... shall suffer death, as in cases of felony, without benefit of clergy.”[248] In North Carolina, in 1758, the Assembly resolved to try “a plan which would save the lives of the slaves and still act as a deterrent from further crimes.” It was enacted “that except for rape or murder no male slave who had committed a crime which was ordinarily punished by death should suffer death for the first offence; but that on due conviction such an offender should be castrated, the sheriff to be allowed for the operation twenty shillings to be paid by the public. The court must fix the value of the slave before the execution of this sentence, so that if it should be the cause of his death there might be no dispute as to the value to be paid his master. Three pounds were allowed by the public for the curing of the slave’s wounds. For the second offence death might be the penalty.”[249] Foregoing further quotation and reference, the statement may be made that in the colonial period, when laws were enacted for the trial and punishment of offenses committed by negroes upon whites, rape was usually one of the offenses for which capital punishment was provided, and considerable discretion was generally allowed the judicial authorities as to the manner in which the penalty should be inflicted, the methods of hanging and burning alive both being employed. In Massachusetts, in the year 1676, Basto, a negro slave, was sentenced to be hanged for rape on the daughter of his master.[250] In New Jersey, in the year 1731, “a negro slave called Harry, ravished Annatye Pryers, but, apparently without exercising much force; sentenced to receive forty-one lashes and to be branded on the right shoulder with the letter ‘B.’”[251]