174 ST. HELENA 



together^in the solemn exercises of Right Duties and attendance 

 upon God's holy ordinances. Also carefully to avoid the odious 

 sinnes of profane swearing and cursing or commonly taking the 

 holy name of the Great Glorious God in vaine, and to abstain from 

 drunckenness, stealing, thieving and other horrid vices and wicked- 

 nesses." 



Sarah Marshall had thirty-one lashes on her naked body at the 

 Flagstaff for scandalizing Captain Bendall. 



Parnum was fined 55. for working on the Lord's Day, and his wife 

 is. for cursing the island. 



A terrible punishment was this : Sottoe, a slave, was for some 

 fault chastised by his master, and retaliated by attacking him 

 with his knife ; the result was, not much harm for the master, but 

 terrible for the poor slave. There was just at this time a fear of 

 insurrection amongst the blacks, and Sottoe was chosen as the 

 instrument for maintaining order. He pleaded that a fellow slave 

 named Rowland persuaded him to attack his master ; also that he 

 was under the influence of tobacco which he had stolen and smoked 

 in a pipe ; this pleading was in vain. It was ordered that his hand 

 wherewith he attacked his master was to be cut off ; he was then 

 to be hanged and when dead his head was to be cut off and placed 

 on the top of the Market House as a warning to all transgressors. 

 Rowland was not let off punishment, for he was to be led with a rope 

 round his neck to witness his companion's execution, and after 

 forty stripes on his naked body he was to have a pair of iron pot- 

 hooks rivetted round his neck until further orders. 



The above terrible sentence was not, however, carried out in 

 full. Sottoe's hand was cut off in the presence of all the blacks, 

 but his life was spared. 



Soldiers were generally punished by being compelled to ride the 

 wooden horse. 



William Melling for swearing and incivility " doe ride the wooden 

 horse two houres with a bag of shott at each heel." Again, " that 

 Richard Honeywood doe rid ye wooden horse halfe an houre with 

 two musketts at each heele for slighting the Government and 

 malitiously revenging himself e.' 



For attempting to get away from the island slaves were punished 

 by seventy-five lashes, with five drops of burning sealing-wax dropped 

 on the naked body. 



They seemed in the olden time to be unfortunate in the 

 choice of their clergy, but in reading all these records of 

 cruelty we must remember that the times were cruel, and 

 that in England also highway robbery, sheep stealing and 

 forgery were capital offences. 



Even the whites in St. Helena were made at times to 

 suffer cruel punishments : 



In 1684 Elizabeth Starling was flogged and " duckt " three times. 



