At this court, also, James, Jr., makes another effort for poor Joan. The case having already been settled on one presentment, he bases his complaint upon different grounds. He says that, in the preceding June, Samuel Beebe brought a suit against John and Bathsheba, previous administrators, for possession of Joan, on plea that she was given to Elizabeth Beebe by the widow as part payment of the legacy of £10; but that for Samuel Beebe to make claim of John and Bathsheba at that date—he himself being at said date executor of the estate in place of John Rogers—or for John and Bathsheba to appear on a court summons to answer such complaint of Samuel Beebe was irregular procedure. He states that, at the time Samuel Beebe declares this disposal of Joan by the widow to have been made, the latter was incapable of managing any business, or even of taking care of herself, and was under the guardianship of John and Bathsheba, according to the intent of the testator; also, by order of the court, they were her guardians and the managers of the estate; so that she had no right to dispose of Joan, neither had any possession of her at the time. He avers that by John and Bathsheba illegally joining a false issue with Samuel Beebe, in not reminding the court that they were no longer executors,[116] Joan had been adjudged to Samuel Beebe and taken by execution. He demands Joan with damages. It is a good case, but of course it fails. The court is not willing to reverse its former decision. James, Jr., appeals to the Superior Court. But it will be useless to ask the judge of that court to alter a decision by means of which he has been able to incarcerate his opponent. (The case is not brought before the Superior Court, but apparently dropped as a useless endeavor.) Footnote 116: They could not so remind the court, it being contrary to the will for them to give up their executorship, or to have anything to do with the court. Late in this month of November, occurs the death of Bathsheba (Rogers) Fox.[117] She has been heroically faithful to the departure instituted in 1674, only, at the last, to see this beloved brother again in the iron clutches of ecclesiastical hatred, he who would have been among the first to hasten to her bedside. How bitter to him, in those last days of his devoted sister, must have been the cruel bonds that held him at a distance, while she went down to death. Footnote 117: The esteem and affection in which Bathsheba was held by her husband, Samuel Fox, may be estimated by the fact that he not only gave valuable lands to her sons by Richard Smith in her lifetime, but, although he had married again, left by will, sixteen years after her death, to her sons by the name of Smith, yet living (James and John), £40 each, and to her three daughters by Richard Smith, £10 each. 1712.