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Tangent- Poking around this site brought me to a page listing ways to help out in digitizing records of the past. Going through that led me to a site that's transcribing old revolutionary war era war department documents, which I promptly signed up to do. I love poring over those kinds of records and I'm really excited to find a way to be useful while I'm doing it.

There's all kinds of volunteer transcription projects going on-

http://publicdomainreview.org/building-the-digital-cultural-...

"JOHN MACKAREL was indicted for river piracy, but on the appointed day of his trial the prosecutor failed to appear in court. The charges were dismissed."

I'd dearly love to here more about this John Mackarel. The account is two sentences but, for some reason, it stokes fires in my imagination.

I would also guess his name was John MacKarel

According to this blog: http://nineteenteen.blogspot.co.uk/2012_10_01_archive.html

"And the judges were more free to interpret the law then they would be today. For example, in May 1816, John Mackarel was indicted for river piracy, but the prosecutor didn’t show up on the day of the trial so he got off as not guilty. Wonder what happened to the prosecutor, hm?"

edit: seems to be http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=nl&u=http:/...