Orders, 22–23 August 1756
Orders
Parole: Salisbury.
[22, 23 August 1756]
Winchester, Sunday 22d August, 1756.
Parole: Tangiers.
Winchester, Monday 23d August 1756.
A court of enquiry, to consist of all the Officers in town, to sit immediately, to enquire into the complaint of Daniel Bevan, Soldier in Captain Mercers company, against James Lemon, Tavern-keeper, for striking and abusing him.1
The parties, with their Evidences, to be summoned to attend—The court must also award the Damages against the Offender.
LB, DLC:GW.
1. Daniel Bevans, a 21–year-old Englishman who enlisted in Gloucester County in January 1755, was described as being 5′7″ tall and of “Dark Compln very well set full round Face, fresh coloured” (George Mercer’s company size roll, 2 Aug. 1756, DLC:GW). A fragment of an indictment of James Lemen charges that he “then and there did beat wound and ill Treat [Bevans], so that his Life was greatly despaired of, and other Wrongs to the said Daniel Bevans then and there did, to the great Damage of the said Daniel Bevans. . . .” This was sworn to in the General Court, 16 Oct. 1756, by Bevans and his captain, George Mercer, and signed with the initials of Benjamin Waller, clerk of the General Court. Mercer had been summoned to Williamsburg also to appear as a witness in the Knap counterfeiting trial (see GW to Robert Dinwiddie, 4 Aug. 1756, and note 23; Memorandum, 10 Oct. 1756, n.1; Orders, 31 Oct. 1756). The document is docketed: “An Indictment against James Lemen for An Assault & Battery. A True Bill[.] Mann Page Foreman[.] Oct. 1756 Process Awarded[.] April 1757 Not Guilty[.] Octr Abated” (Vi: Colonial Papers, 45:9). James Lemen, in whose ordinary troops of the Virginia Regiment were quartered (see Orders, 7 Aug. 1756), died during the summer after the verdict was rendered.