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 En_lar_d, Table of Contents, (Oxford 176S-1769) o
 The majority of all criminal prosecutions fell within the
 category of "offenses against God and Religiono _' Of 2_784
 prosecutions in the Superior and General Sessions Court of
 Massachusetts between 1760 and 1774, 1,074, or 38%, were for
 sexual offenses, including adultery_ cohabitation, indecent
 exposure, lewdness and prostitution° The great bulk of sexual
 offenses - over 95% - were for fornication° Nelson,
 Americanization of Common Law 37 (1975).
 A detailed study of the laws has shown that Virginia "did
 not differ radically from Episcopal England or even Puritan
 Massachusetts so far as legislation against vice and profaneness
 were concerned; nor were earnest efforts at the enforcement of
 laws entirely lacking°" Arthur Po Scott_ Criminal Law in
 Colonial Virqinia (1930) o Historian Arthur P. Scott notes that:
 The earliest records of the civil court show
 that they regularly dealt with many offenses
 which in England would have gone preferably
 before church courts The beginnings of
 a similar movement can be traced in tlhe
 English county courts, but it was greatly
 hastened in Virginia. In dealing with
 various forms of immorality, the Virginia
 Magistrates frequently imposed penances which
 were substantially the same as those employed
 in the ecclesiastical courts at home, notably
 appearing in church in a white sheet,
 carrying a wand, and there making a
 confession° After about 1650 these
 disappears and while the laws still speak of
 the displeasure which certain offenses give
 to God, and the records refer to the _sin" of
 fornicationg for example, the penalties are
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