The Providence Journal, And Town And Country Advertiser

NEW-YORK, July 13.

Extract of a letter from Utica, dated June 12.

At the court of Oyer and Terminer, held in this county last week, Robert Hazard, of Rome, labourer, was convicted of forgery, and sentenced to the state prison for life. He leaves behind him an affectionate wife (She is by law no longer his wife) and three or four small children. At the same court: George Peters, an Indian of the Brothertown tribe, was convicted of the murder of his wife. The proof against him was full and
convincing; and the murder appeared to have been committed in a most cruel and barbarous manner. Judge Kent, who presided and delivered his sentence, explained to him the nature of the crime and of the sentence, in a manner at once plain, full and pathetic. This impressive sentence cannot fail to have considerable effect upon the feelings and future conduct of a number of the principal men present of the tribe to which this Indian belongs. It was calculated to show them the energy as well as the necessity of the laws by which we are governed.

This convict will be executed on the last Friday in August next.

Some little doubt was at first entertained, whether the Brothertown Indians were amenable to the laws of the state for offences committed amongst themselves; but a recurrence to their history evinced them to be mere remnants of various Atlantic tribes, which were conquered and mostly destroyed by the early European emigrants; who had lost all territorial and national sovereignty and renounced all right of self-government and cognizance of offences, and had for a century been subjected to the laws of the state in which they had resided. Those considerations induced Judge Kent to proceed to trial and execution, without reserving the question for the consideration of the Justices of the Supreme Court.