The Regulator War part 17- the trials on June 14th the court at Hillsborough would try the prisoners under the Riot Act. by Jim Curran

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The Regulator War part 17- the trials on June 14th the court at Hillsborough would try the prisoners under the Riot Act.

It must be noted that they were being tried in the same court that they had protested corruption in. Although they were tried by Jury the court had demonstrated bias many times before in their selection of juries. The act that they were tried under was a temporary act created for this express purpose that converted riot into the crime of treason. “On Friday, June 14, the army was again in Hillsborough. The occasion was the first day of a special Court of Oyer and Terminer called by the governor under terms of the Johnston Riot Act. Chief Justice Martin Howard and Associate Justices Maurice Moore and Richard Henderson conducted the court, at which a jury tried fourteen captured Regulators on charges of high treason. For security, the fourteen prisoners had been marching with the army since the Battle of Alamance. Twelve Regulators were found guilty and were brought before the bench, where Judge Howard read the sentence for high treason against the crown. According to a contemporary newspaper account, Howard’s chilling words were:I must now close my afflicting Duty, by pronouncing upon you the awful Sentence of the Law; which is, that you… be carried to the place from whence you came, that you be drawn from thence to the Place of Execution, where you are to be hanged by the Neck; that you be cut down while yet alive, that your Bowels be taken out and burnt before your Face, that your Head be cut off, your Body divided into Four Quarters, and this to be at his Majesty’s Disposal; and the Lord have Mercy on your Soul.Of the twelve found guilty, six men were hanged—hanged only, since the gruesome details of the sentence had been omitted from actual execution practices for centuries.” (Bicentennial program 1971) The Field book of the revolution notes: “At Hillsborough he held a court martial for the trial of the prisoners, twelve of whom were condemned to death. Six were reprieved and the other six hung, among whom was Captain Messer.” The prisoners were all indicted for high treason, found guilty and condemned to death. On six of them—James Pugh, Benjamin Merrill, Robert Matear, Captain Messer, and two others-the sentence was executed on the 19th of June, 1771; the other six-Forrester Mercer, James Stewart, James Emmerson, Herman Cox, William Brown, and James Copeland-were respited until the King’s pleasure could be known. (Col. Rec., Vol. 8, p. 635; Vol. 9, PP. 36, 37, 274,311-) Having looked at this miscarriage of justice it is important to see a little bit of God’s justice. Even when unjust men rule God still has the last word (and sometimes a sense of irony.) In 1790 the second of two wooden courthouses burned. It was replaced in 1790 by a brick building. In 1845, the Rev. Elias Dodson, Hillsborough’s first Baptist minister bought the brick courthouse and moved it two blocks north to become the First Baptist Church Building! (They sold it later when a new one was built- it is now an AME church building)