BENEFIT OF CLERGY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Benefit of clergy

... increase of the Yanokie or Yankee tribe; for it is a certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers, that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing number of sturdy brats annually born unto the state, without the license of the law, or the benefit of clergy. Neither did the irregularity of their birth operate in the least to their disparagement. On the contrary, they grew up a long-sided, raw-boned, hardy race of whoreson whalers, wood cutters, fishermen, and peddlers; and strapping corn-fed wenches, who by their united efforts tended marvellously ...

— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles

... sixteen were rebel leaders who had fled from the country. Durham gave orders that the eight prisoners should be transported to the Bermudas during the queen's pleasure. The sixteen refugees were forbidden to return to Canada under penalty of death without benefit of clergy. ...

— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles