=78. Connecticut:--Escape of negroes and servants.=
=No date given.= An Act to prevent the Running away of Indian and Negro Servants. "Be it enacted by the Governour, Council, and Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the Authority of the same, that whatsoever Negro or Indian Servant or Servants shall at any time after the publication hereof be found wandering out of the Town Bounds, or Place to which they belong, without a Ticket or Pass in writing under the Hand of some Assistant or Justice of the Peace, or under the Hand of the Master or Owner of such Negro or Indian Servant or Servants, shall be deemed and accounted to be Run-aways; and every person Inhabiting in this Colony, finding or meeting with any such Negro or Indian Servant or Servants, not having a Ticket as aforesaid, is hereby impowered to seize and secure him or them, and bring him or them before the next authority, to be examined and returned to his or their Master or Owner, who shall satisfy the charge accruing thereby; and all Ferrymen within this Colony are hereby required not to suffer any Indian or Negro Servant, without Certificate as aforesaid, to pass over their respective Ferrys, by assisting of them therein directly or indirectly, on penalty of paying a fine of Twenty Shillings for every such Offence to the County Treasury, to be levied on their estates upon non-payment, by warrant from any one Assistant or Justice of the Peace: And the like methods shall or may be used and observed as to Vagrant or Suspected Persons, found wandring from Town to Town, having no Certificate as aforesaid, who shall be seized and conveyed before the next Authority to be Examined and Disposed of according to Law: And if any Free Negroes shall travel without such Certificate or Pass, and be stopped, seized, or taken up, they shall pay all Charges arising thereby."--¤_Acts and Laws of His Majesty's Province of Connecticut, 87._
=No date given.= "It is also ordered, that when any servants shall runn from theire Masters, or any other inhabitants shall privately goe away with supition of ill intentions, It shall bee lawfull for the next Magistrate, or the constable and two of the chiefest inhabitants where no magistrate is, to press men and boates or pinnaces, at the publique charge, to persue such persons by sea or land, and bring them back by force of armes."--¤_Colonial Records of Connecticut, I. 539._