HISTORICAL NOTES AND QUERIES. "THE TRAPANNED MAIDEN." The following ballad was copied by Mrs. Alice Morse Earle, the wellknown writer, from a collection of old Black Letter Ballads in the British Museum, and sent us for publication. It is entitled “The Trapanned Maiden or the Distressed Damsel.” As a picture of the condition of the indented servant of Colonial Virginia, it will be recognized by all familiar with the subject as full of the exaggerations of poetical license. There was a well-known law in that age against all white women being forced to work in the field, unless of the most abandoned character. To those who wish to know the true condition of the servants at that time, Bruce's "Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century," Chapters IX and X, and Ballagh's "White Servitude in Virginia,” are recommended. The ballad, while of no real historical value, is of interest in itself: The Girl was cunningly trapan'd, She vows she'll ne'er go there again. Give ear unto a Maid That lately was betray'd, And sent into Virginny, O: In brief I shall declare, What I have suffered there, When that first I came Which is called Virginny, O: The Axe and the Hoe Have wrought my overthrow, Five years served I In the land of Virginny, O: Sorrow, Grief, and Woe, When that I was weary, O. When my Dame says, Go, In the land of Virginny, O: Then I have none to eat, When that I was weary, O. The cloathes that I brought in, They are worn very thin, In the land of Virginny, O: Which makes me for to say Alas! and well-a-day, When that I was weary, O. Instead of Beds of Ease, Then the Spider, she In the land of Virginny, O: So soon as it is day, In the land of Virginny, O: When that I was weary, O. I have played my part In the land of Virginny, O: In the land of Virginny, O: Which makes me pale and wan, Do all that e'er I can, When that I was weary, O. If my Dame says, Go, I dare not say no, In the land of Virginny, O: When that I was weary, O. When the Mill doth stand, In the land of Virginny, O: When the child doth cry, In the land of Virginny, O: No rest that I can have A thousand Woes beside, In the land of Virginny, O: My time that hath no end, Then let Maids beware, In the land of Virginny, O: You will all be weary, O. But if it be my chance, Homeward to advance, From the land of Virginny, O: If that I once more Land on English shore, I'll no more be weary, O. COLONIAL RECORDS OF MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND BURIALS. (Contributed by Hon. J. H. Brown.) Every act of the Grand Assembly (and they are numerous) from 1631 to 1748, and subsequently, required a record, under oath and penalty, to be made and kept of all births, marriages, baptisms, and burials in each county. In some the preamble set forth the object, the evils, and the remedy, and declared the record so made should be and remain a record forever. Such was the act of 1659-I Hen. St., page 542-entitled "An act to record all marriages, births, and burials." "Whereas many differences arise about the age of orphans, & enquries are often made for persons imported into the colony, of whose death no positive certificate can be granted for want of register. Be it therefore enacted—That every parish shall well & truly & plainly record & set down in a book provided for the purpose, all marriages, deaths & births, that shall happen within the parish. And in the month of March in every year, the person appointed by the parish so to do, shall make true certificate into the clerke of every county, to the intent the same may there remain on record forever." By act of 1661-2 Hen. St., page 54-the above act of 1659 was in substance re-enacted and continued. By act of 1705-3 Hen. St., page 445-lists of marriage licenses were required to be returned by the clerk of each county court to the Governor, annually, in October, and also to deliver to the sheriff the account of the Governor's fees for said licenses, to be collected for the Governor. By proclamation of 1712—4 Hen. St., page 550-Governor Spotswood enforced the execution of those acts, requiring it read in all the churches, and the justices to present and prosecute all ministers, clerks, and masters who were delinquent in its execution. By act of 1713-4 Hen. St., page 42-"Whereas it is judged convenient, that an exact & regular account of all persons, who shall be born, christened, or buried in this colony, should be kept," &c. It was required that the minister of every parish should keep a fair and exact register of all births and deaths and baptisms within his parish. The act to be read publicly in all the churches twice a year. By act of 1748-6 Hen. St., page 84-every clerk of a county court shall, in October, annually, deliver to the Governor, &c., a true list af all marriage licenses by him issued, &c. MILITARY PUNISHMENTS. I am anxious to obtain examples and accounts of military punishments in Colonial and Revolutionary times, such as "riding the wooden horse,' being tied to a wheelbarrow, and wearing the "drunkard's cloak." The latter, known also as the "barrel shirt," consisted of a barrel with a hole cut in the head at one end, through which the offender's head was thrust. I have heard that the latter mode of punishment was often employed in camp in our Civil War. Also further examples of punishment of being “dragged at a Boat's Stern" (page 363, April number Virginia Magazine); also of public penance as shown on page 27, July number Virginia Magazine. Also examples of the use of the bilboes. Any references to these modes of punishment, from church, court, military, or town records, or any suggestions where information may be found will be gratefully received. 242 Henry St., Brooklyn, N. Y. CLAIBORNE. ALICE MORSE EARLE. (Contributed by J. E. Cross.) It may interest your California correspondent and others to learn that by heraldic rules the eldest, or senior line of a family, alone, has the right to bear and use the paternal coat, unquartered, or undifferenced. In this family it should be so borne by the eldest brother of the late General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, C. T. A., and by him only. He is the head and representative of the name. 2. As Secretary William Clayborne (or Cleyborne, as the name is spelled in his commission A. D. 1625) was a younger son of this house, he probably used the quartered coat, as tricked in the "Visitations of Westmoreland" in the London College of Arms. 3. Crests and mottoes being non-essential parts of coat armour, may be varied or assumed at the pleasure of the bearer. Punning mottoes, names, or arms. was a silly fad of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The sentence is "Losse clibbor na sceame "-a clumsy, ungrammatical equivalent for sticking, or cleaving, to what is praiseworthy, rather than to what others considered shameful. No doubt the stubborn old Secretary thought it more praiseworthy to turn Puritan, to get his way, rather than to be satisfied with the shameful Royalist effort to silence his grievances with the offices of Treasurer and Secretary of State. 4. Esten Cooke's sketch was more novelistic than historic, though founded on his own accurate research, or the recent views of Harrison, of Maryland, Lemuel Chester, Sainsbury, Sidney Howard Gay, and others. GENEALOGICAL NOTE AS TO THE SPENCER FAMILY. Extract from a letter dated Berkeley, May 12, 1780, from John Aviss to Robert Carter, of Nomini: * an affair that was transacted between your Grand Father the Honble. Robert Carter, and Nicholas Spencer Esqr., one of my Great Unkles, upwards of Seventy years ago. Nicholas Spencer Esqr. sold to your Grand Father a Large Tract of Land whereon you now live, in order to Raise Money to Prosecute a Suit in England for an Estate his Brother The Honble. William Spencer had Mortgaged when he was Elected Member of Parliament for the County of Bedford, and which |