The stern penalty of death visited the
crimes of rebellion and conspiracy, which aimed a blow at sovereign
power, and even the popular tumult, which kings have so much cause to
dread, was stilled by the same bloody monitor; yet arson and burglary
were left to the discretion of the councils. Adultery was punished with
death--a penalty never inflicted even in England, except during a time of
puritanic zeal, which offered God a service without knowledge. In the eye
of divine purity the offender, by this crime, may be the vilest of the
vile, but if the Redeemer of the world refused to denounce the punishment
of death against one taken in the act, it devolved not on this Scottish
Draco to render it a capital crime. The whole legislative power is vested
in the council, without any reference to the interests or the rights of
the people whom they were to govern, and the King retains absolute
control over the present and future laws of the colony, thus rendering
their great distance from his face the best protection they could have
against his tyranny. The trial by jury was required for capital felonies
and manslaughter; but all inferior offences and every civil interest,
however overwhelming in importance to the colonist, were to be summarily
decided upon by the provincial councils.
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