8Record of the Court of Chester County, 56 (3.iv.1685); Winthrop, Journal, 14 June 1631.
9Record of the Court of Chester County, 5, 9, 10, 12, 15.
10 Alan Tully found the following patterns in cases heard by the court of quarter sessions in Chester County, 1726-55:
|
number |
percent |
Crimes against persons |
|
(27.7%) |
|
|
27.7% |
Crimes against property |
|
(22.8%) |
|
|
20.8% |
|
|
1.1% |
|
|
0.9% |
Crimes against morality |
|
(24.1%) |
|
|
22.9% |
|
|
1.2% |
Crimes against order and authority |
|
(8.1%) |
|
|
4.5% |
|
|
2.3% |
|
|
1.3% |
Crimes unidentified |
|
13.4% |
Crimes miscellaneous |
|
4.0% |
Total |
|
100.1% |
Source: Tully, William Penn’s Legacy, 190-91; a study of Philadelphia County in a later period found a higher incidence of property crimes; see A. H. Hobbs, “Criminality in Philadelphia, 1790-1810, Compared with 1937,” ASR 8 (1943), 198-200.
11 For the testimony of George Fox and John Bellers against capital punishment, see Herbert W. K. Fitzroy, “The Punishment of Crime in Provincial Pennsylvania,” PMHB 60 (1936), 244.