Dr. Pott could not believe that the proceedings against him were intended seriously, and, in defiance of the Governor's commands, left his plantation to come to Elizabeth City. "Upon which contempt," wrote Harvey, "I committed him close prisoner, attended with a guard." At the earnest request of several gentlemen, the Governor finally consented that he might return to his plantation, but only under bond. Pott, however, refused to avail himself of the kindness of his friends, and so was kept in confinement.[257] On the 9th of July he was brought to trial, found guilty upon two indictments, and his entire estate confiscated.[258]
That Pott was convicted by a jury of thirteen men, three of them Councillors, is by no means conclusive evidence of his guilt. The close connection between the executive and the courts at this time made it quite possible for the Governor to obtain from a jury whatever verdict he desired. In fact it became the custom for a new administration, as soon as it was installed in power, to take revenge upon its enemies by means of the courts.
Pott's guilt is made still more doubtful by the fact that execution of the sentence was suspended "untill his Majesties pleasure might be signified concerning him", while the Council united in giving their security for his safe keeping.[259] Harvey himself wrote asking the King's clemency. "For as much," he said, "as he is the only Physician in the Colonie, and skilled in the Epidemicall diseases of the planters, ... I am bound to entreat" your Majesty to pardon him.[260] It would seem quite inexplicable that Harvey should go to so much trouble to convict Dr. Pott, and then write immediately to England for a pardon, did not he himself give the clue to his conduct. "It will be," he said, "a means to bring the people to ... hold a better respect to the Governor than hitherto they have done."[261] Having shown the colonists that he could humble the strongest of them, he now sought to teach them that his intercession with the King could restore even the criminal to his former position.
When Dr. Pott was at Elizabeth City his wife was reported to be ill, but this did not deter her from making the long and dangerous voyage to England to appeal to the King "touching the wrong" done her husband.[262] Charles referred the matter to the Virginia commissioners, who gave her a hearing in the presence of Harvey's agent. Finding no justification for the proceedings against him, they wrote Harvey that for aught they could tell Pott had demeaned himself well and that there seemed to have been "some hard usage against him".[263] The sentence of confiscation seems never to have been carried out, but Pott was not restored to his seat in the Council.[264]