"Jack negro servant to Mr Samuel Woolcot of Weathersfield thou art Jndicted by the name of Jack Negro for not hauing the feare of God before thy eyes being Instigated by the Divill did at or upon the foureteenth day of July last 1681 wittingly & felloniously sett on fier Leiftenat Wm Clarks house in North Hampton. by taking a brand of fier from the hearth and swinging it vp & doune for to find victualls as by his confession may Appeare Contrary to the peace of our Soueraigne Lord the King his Croune & dignity the lawes of God & of this Jurisdiction in that case made & prouided title firing of houses page (52) to wch Jndictment at the barr he pleaded not Guilty, & Affirmd he would be trjed by God & the Country and after his Confessions &c were read to him & his owni[=g] thereof were Comitted to the Jury who brought him in Guilty and the next day had his sentence pronounct agt him by the Gouernor that he should goe from the barr to the place whence he came & there be hangd by the neck till he be dead & then taken doune & burnt to Ashes in the fier wth Marja Negro--The Lord be mercifull to thy soule sajd the Gouernor"[23] [Footnote 23: _Ibid._] There was some excuse for the latter part of this sentence, for since the offence was an atrocious felony, such as in England would subject the offender to an infamous punishment, it seemed proper to attach something more of ignominy to his sentence than the mere execution by hanging. Our forefathers of the colonial period regarded the Mosaic law as of too sacred obligation to be impaired in the least degree; much more to be expressly contravened by the courts of justice in respect to the command,-- "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."[24] [Footnote 24: Deut. xxi. 22, 23.] --they, therefore, by an ordinance passed in 1641, had required that the body of every executed criminal should be buried within twelve hours after death, except in cases of anatomy, which prevented the possibility of hanging in chains after the English fashion; and the only way in which they could set a mark of infamy upon the deceased criminal, without a breach of the colonial ordinance as well as of the divine law, was to burn the body.[25]