“were in point of law a sufficient conveyance of the negro woman to Eliz. Beebe, without John Roger’s consent to said conveyance by his mother, then the jury find the case for Samuel Beebe; but if the consent of John Rogers was, in point of law, under said settlement by said committee, necessary to such a conveyance, then they find the woman for John Rogers.” This calls for the decision of Judge Gurdon Saltonstall, the archenemy of John Rogers, who, naturally, ignores the blunder of the committee and adjudges Joan and her child to Samuel Beebe, as slaves for life. Two months later, a second child is born to Joan, at Plumb Island, a babe its father may neither claim nor behold. Nearly six months more drag slowly by, in great and grave suspense. 1711. As for Joan herself, she is not likely to settle down at once, if ever, in meek submission to her fate. Woman-like, her first thought would be to escape, if possible, to her husband and the kind masters at Mamacock, being sure that if she is once upon that shore, they will not willingly return her to Plumb Island. She cannot be supposed to consider, in so dire a strait, the peril they would incur by harboring a runaway slave, such as she now is, by the decision of the Superior Court. In the latter part of May, 1711, John Rogers, Sr., is in the vicinity of Long Island, and also on the mainland of New York. Southold, L.I., is a common stopping-place for boats from New London. His friend, Mr. Thomas Young, is now of that place. If John Rogers landed at Southold, Joan might learn of this fact and act upon it. But by nightfall the man for whose assistance she may have hoped is at his objective point on the mainland. She finds conveyance of some kind, however; for, this same night, she escapes from Plumb Island with her two children. Upon his return to Mamacock, the next day, John Rogers finds them there and is accused of so poor a trick as the bringing them to his own home. He may have had in view some scheme for their escape; but if so, his plans have been thwarted by Joan’s imprudence, through her eagerness to reach her friends in New London. At the New London County Court, June 5, Christopher Christophers, one of the chief enemies of John Rogers, being one of the judges, Samuel Beebe enters complaint against John Rogers and John Jackson, “on suspicion that they stole Joan and her two children out of his house the night of May 29th last.” The accused men, being now before the court, plead not guilty to the charge of taking Joan from Plumb Island; but acknowledge that, after her arrival at Mamacock, they conveyed her into Rhode Island. Samuel Beebe owns that the woman and her children have since been returned to him by the governor of Rhode Island, and that he has them now.