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Colonial Office Records
Trial of George Rider
1774

CO 194 Vol 32 (1774) At the General Assizes held in St. John=s, Newfoundland, the third day of October in the fourteenth year of His Majesty's reign George the Third of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King Defender of the Faith and so Forth and in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy four before Edward Langman, Nicholas Gill, John Stripling, William Thomas, Robert Bulley, Samuel Webber and Elliot Elinor esqs. Commissioners appointed by his excellency Molineux Shuldham Esq. Governor to hear and determine all criminal causes/ Treason excepted/ according to laws and justices and to proceed to sentences or acquittances as the cases shall require. The Court being opened and the Grand Jury, the several Jurors being duly sworn, the sundry bills of indictment were given them upon whence they withdrew. The Jurors for our Lord the King upon oath then present that George Rider late of Poole in the county of Dorset, Merchant having God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigations of the devil on the first day of January in the fourteenth year of the reign of our said Sovereign Lord George the Third of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King defender of the Faith and so forth, on the first day of January aforesaid with force and arms near his house at Bonavista in the Island of Newfoundland in and upon another Mich. Kenedy a native of the Kingdom of Ireland, in the Peace of God and of Our Said Lord then and there being, the aforesaaid, Michael Kenedy having first stricken the said George Rider feloniously did make an assault, and that the aforesaid George Rider with a certain gun of the value of ten shillings which he the said George Rider in hands then and there held, loaded with lead, shott the said Michael Keney under the ear of him the said Michael Kenedy the aforesaid Michael Kenedy as aforesaid then and there not having any weapons drawn nor the aforesaid Michael Kenedy then and there having first stricken the said George Rider, then and there feloniously did shoott and discharge the lead into the head of the said Michael Kenedy giving unto the said Michael Kenedy then and there with the gun aforesaid in form aforesaid in and under the ear of him the said Michael Kenedy three mortals wounds with the shott aforesaid of which mortal wound he the said Michael Kenedy then and there instantly died. And so the jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid do say that the said George Rider, on the aforesaid first day of January in the year aforesaid at Bonavista aforesaid in the manner and form aforesaid, feloniously did kill against the peace of our Lord the King His Crown and dignity, as aginst the forms of the statute in such case made provided. Ignoramus Jas Gosse Foreman

Contributed by Thomas R. Cole (February 2000)

Page Revised by Craig Peterman (January 2003)

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