1777-12-24 (static/transcriptions/1777/12/077.jpg)

1777. Sessions. [Wednesday] Dec. 24.

for beating and putting in Irons a Slave Girl, named Raso. The first tried was against her Mistress named M and the second against One Buck, a European, her husband. Contrary to the direction of the Court, and contrary to Law and the Evidence, the Jury found the Woman, not Guilty. On the second the Man was found “Guilty”.
The Prisoners in each of these Indictments produced what they call’d Slave Papers, one of the Papers was an English Paper, the other was a Bengal Paper. In the first Indictment Impey inform’d the Jury that the Court had never solemnly determined that Slavery could be allow’d in this Town on any title, but that every one of the Judges severally acting as Justices of the Peace, had examined into slave Papers and inquired into the Law among the Mahomedans, and that no validity was allow’d to any slave-papers but such as had the Seal of the Cazi to them, for a Sale authenticated by the Caze is the only way by which slavery can commence according to the Mahommedan Law. The Papers now produced had no seals on them. The only Papers which I (J. H.) take to be regular Slave-Papers are Persian Papers, with the Cazi’s Seal. Impey told
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