Chap XIX.} |
1692 |
Meantime, the confessions of the witches began to be directed against the Anabaptists. Mary Osgood was dipped by the devil. The court still had work to do. On the ninth, six women were condemned; and more convictions followed. Giles Cory, the octogenarian, seeing that all were convicted, refused to plead, and was condemned to be pressed to death. The horrid sentence, a barbarous usage of English law, never again followed in the colonies, was executed forthwith.
On the twenty-second of September, eight persons were led to the gallows. Of these, Samuel Wardwell had confessed, and was safe; but, from shame and penitence, he retracted his confession, and, speaking the truth boldly, he was hanged, not for witchcraft, but for denying witchcraft. Martha Cory was, before execution, visited in prison by Parris, the two deacons, and another member of his church. The church record tells that, self-sustained, she ‘imperiously’ rebuked her destroyers, and ‘they pronounced the dreadful sentence of excommunication against her.’ In the calmness with which Mary Easty exposed the falsehood of those who had selected from her family so many victims, she joined the noblest fortitude with sweetness of temper, dignity, and resignation. But the chief judge was positive that all had been done rightly, and
Brattle, 74. |
Already twenty persons had been put to death for
