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Chapter XXV
The Court, Bench, And Bar Of Delaware County.
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| retary, was "to book all matters . . . complaints, defaults, arrests, with the reasons thereof, also all judgments, sentences, and decisions," while the vice-director was enjoined to "strictly observe and have observed the placards and ordinances made and published heretofore against the sale of brandy or strong drinks to the savages, regarding the robbing of gardens or plantations, the running about the country, drinking on the Sabbath, and profanation of the same." The court where breaches of these ordinances were to be tried was a meeting of Council, which was to be called only by the order of the vice-director, and all matters pending before that body were to be decided by "a majority of votes," and in case of a tie the vice-director was "to have a double vote." In cases of military or concerning the company's property, the vice-director, beside the members of Council, was instructed to add two sergeants, who were to sit as part of the court; but where the matter was purely a civil one, "between freemen and servants of the company, two suitable freemen were to be substituted instead of the sergeants."1 | 1 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. pp. 490-491. | ||
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This tribunal seems to have exercised legislative as well as judicial powers, for it is recorded that on Feb. 13, 1656, all persons at New Castle were required to inclose their lots before the 15th of March following, and, failing to do so, were punishable by a fine of six guilders. The owners of goats were also instructed to provide keepers for these animals. On May 22d Council directed that the swine at that place should be yoked within twenty-four hours, under the penalty of having the creatures killed by the soldiers.2 At the February court, before mentioned, Thomas Broen, who was charged with having beaten a servant so that he was rendered unable to labor, was ordered to provide for the latter until he was restored to health. The defendant, for having spoken disrespectfully of Vice-Director Jacquet, possibly because of the sentence, was placed under arrest. In July a Swede and Finn, charged with violating the law respecting the sale of liquor to Indians, in extenuation of their act pleaded ignorance of the law, which seems to have been regarded as a valid excuse, for they were discharged. | 2 Acrelius, "New Sweden," p. 92. | ||
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Early in 1657, Jacob Alrichs was appointed vice-director of the city's colony on the Delaware (part of the Delaware territory, for Christiana River to Bombay Hook had been transferred to the city of Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company for moneys advanced), and in the latter part of April he arrived at New Castle. That there then was a court held on the river is established from the prayer of the Swedish inhabitants that a court-messenger and provost might be appointed for them. Sheriff Van Dyck proposed "one Jurgen, the Fin on the Crooked Kil," for the office, which suggestion received, June 12, 1657, the approval of Governor Stuyvesant. From this, however, the inference naturally is that the court was held at New Castle or Christiana, and was lacking in every essential the received ideas of a judicial tribunal, inasmuch that Alrichs, on March 30, 1658, in a letter to Stuyvesant, says, "I found the government here to consist and be attended to by the Vice-Director or Commander, sitting over military delinquents with military persons, and over citizens with citizens, as ordered by your Honor, to whom I, upon my arrival, represented and showed the charges which were to be taken in consideration afterwards:"3 From the foregoing remark, Mr. Nead maintains that a regular set of laws or ordinances had been promulgated for the general government of the Delaware River settlement shortly after the conquest by the Dutch, and that Alrichs' instructions clearly contemplated the continuance and enforcement of these ordinances,4 a conclusion which is doubtless correct. Certain it is that an attorney practiced before the court, for March 30, 1658, Alrichs writes, "I have also to pay the attorney, Schelluyn, for salary earned by him in the suit against Dirck Cornelissen Heunich, skipper of the ship 'Prins Maurits,' but it seems that the expenses ought to be paid out of the deposited sum, the proceeds of the sale of the goods, unless your Honor understood that we should not consider this."5 This is the first recorded appearance of an attorney in our annals. On Oct. 10, 1658, Alrichs informed the authorities at Amsterdam that he had "received the police and law books which were sent out, consisting of 2 parts and a duplicate of each, and we shall make use of them; but (not) the bylaws of the city, at the end of which the customs of Antwerp are annexed and printed," whereof mention is frequently made in the dispatch.6 |
3 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 526. 4 Duke's Book of Laws, p. 435. 5 Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 528. 6 Ib., vol. v. p. 304. | ||
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On May 8, 1658, the Swedish magistrates at Tinicum presented a petition to Governor Stuyvesant, who was then visiting the settlements on the Delaware, requesting that they might be properly instructed respecting the discharge of their duties, and that a court messenger or officer should be appointed to serve summons, make arrests, and enforce the sentences of the courts.7 The meagre information we have seems to indicate that the Holland conquerors deemed it wise policy to continue the old Swedish magistrates in office, the latter nationality being largely that of the majority of the inhabitants; obedience would be more easily rendered to their former rulers than to new men, with whose language and person the people were generally unacquainted. The sitting of the court was at Fort Altena, for the company's colony, which included all this locality, and they were held "three or four times during the year | 7 Ib., vol. vii. p. 531. | ||