By this time, Samuel Beebe sees that the young lawyer contemplates nothing short of preventing every irregular claim which he may venture to make. Samuel Beebe is no more in need of servants, lands or goods than are the other heirs, having a good estate from his own father and another by gifts to his wife from her father. He is now living at Plumb Island, and in so showy a way that he is called “King Beebe.”—(_Caulkins._) It is apparently, on his part, a game played mainly for the zest of it; as Samuel Beebe might sail a boat of his own against one of Captain James or that at Mamacock. But alas! a young wife and mother is to become a victim of this game. For about four years now, a young negro woman named Joan, who was born of a slave of James Rogers, Sr., has been the wife of a free colored man named John Jackson, a servant of John Rogers, living in a house on the Mamacock farm. Joan has, by Jackson, one child, a son, about two years old, and is expecting another. While yet a child, Joan was given by the widow of James Rogers to Elizabeth Beebe, in payment of the legacy of £10, which latter was to be paid to said Elizabeth Beebe (according to the terms of the will), by said widow, “with consent of my son John.” Said executor not seeing fit to transfer Joan to a man who kept slaves in life bondage, and not doubting that the arrangements for settlement of the estate according to the will and codicil would fully sustain him in not allowing this claim of Samuel Beebe by the unwarranted and unsanctioned act of his mother, freed Joan in due course of time, as he did the rest of the young slaves. 1710. About October 1, 1710, Samuel Beebe, in some manner not indicated by the court records, succeeds in securing Joan Jackson and her boy and detaining them at Plumb Island. Unfortunately, and apparently very carelessly (as shown in Chapter IV.), the committee, in their decision of 1693, instead of using the wording of the will in regard to the payment of the £10 by the widow, viz.: “with consent of my son John,” rendered it that the £10 be paid to Elizabeth “by John and Bathsheba, when the widow so order.” September 19, 1710, James, Jr., enters complaint at the County Court that Samuel Beebe is illegally detaining from him, present executor of his grandfather’s estate, a negro woman, named Joan, who was the property of James Rogers at the time of his death. The defendant claims that the woman was part of the legacy of £10 given his wife. The court decides in favor of Samuel Beebe, its decision being grounded on the blunder of the committee of division, in 1693. James, Jr., appeals to the Superior Court. The latter court decides that if the settlement of the committee in 1693, in accordance with the terms of the will,