Beschreibung:

ST HELENA, broadside. - The Case of Katherine Taylor, the late Widow of William Rutter (who was Hanged by the East-India Company, at St.Helena,) in Behalf of Her self, and Four of her Children. [No place but ?London: no date but with manuscript date '1699' on verso]. Broadsheet (415 x 253mm). 1p. with 4 -line letterpress summary of the petition on the verso. (Old folds, some browning to margins.) Unbound, 20th-century purple cloth box. A VERY RARE BROADSIDE. Katherine Taylor, in an attempt to recover from the East India Company the 'Goods, Lands, and Effects' of her second husband together with monies owing to him, here petitions the House of Parliament 'to take into their Consideration the Deplorable Estate of the Petitioner and her Children'. Katherine Taylor emigrated to St.Helena 'about Twenty five Years since' with her first husband, William Mills on the East India Company's promise of 20 acres and two cows. Her husband died at sea, but she took posession of the land and married William Rutter. Rutter was 'turn'd out of his... Commission' as an 'Ensigne under the Company's Governour of the Fort of St. Helena' with 93 pounds owing to him. In 1685 he was hanged for his part in presenting a petition 'in a Humble and Peaceable manner' to the Governor. The date on the verso of this work is written in ink in an early hand, but from internal evidence a date of about 1703-1705 seems more likely. Not in Wing or ESTC.