Dorcas Good, not five years old, was big enough to have her specter seen, to have her spirit-teeth bite, and also to see clairvoyantly. The little witch was sent to jail.
Sarah Osburn was sighted by the inner optics of the accused, and she heard voices from out the unseen. This feeble one was sent to jail, and soon died there.
Martha Corey was charged with afflicting; also she avowed heresy pertaining to witchcraft. Though interiorly illumined far beyond her accusers and judges, and enabled to smile amid their frowns, she was executed.
Giles Corey, seen as a specter, and accused of harming many, would make no plea to his indictment. Pressure, applied for forcing out a plea, extorted only his call for “More weight, more weight,”—and his life went out.
Rebecca Nurse, venerable matron, daughter of a mother who had been called a witch, and conscious of personal liability to then prevalent fits, was seen by, and accused of hurting, members of The Circle. Therefore she must be hanged—though jury first acquitted, and then, under rebuke, called her guilty; and though governor pardoned, and then revoked his clement act. Fealty to witchcraft creed in that case triumphed, though nearly defeated twice.
Mary Easty, noble woman, sister of the above, and daughter of the same witch-blooded mother, once arrested and discharged, and then re-arrested, because seen by inner eyes and accused of bewitching, rose sublimely above thoughts of self and dread of death, and appealed to the magistrates, in clear, strong, and forceful language, to change their course of procedure, to spare the innocent, and become wisely humane.
Susanna Martin, spectrally seen, and a reputed witch during more than a score of years, bravely faced the dangers besetting an accused one, was self-possessed before the magistrates, was spicy, shrewd, and keen in her answers to their questions, but failed to descend to confession, and died on Gallows Hill.
Martha Carrier, having been a clear seer for forty years, and long visible by others similarly unfolded, was brave, self-possessed, and ready with pointed retort. Because hard to subdue, accusations came thick and heavy upon her from “The Circle” almost en masse, and she too was doomed to mount the ladder.
Sarah Carrier, daughter of the above, eight years old, stated instructive facts in her experience as a clairvoyant, and notably said that her own spirit could go forth to others and hurt them; also that her mother’s was the only spirit with which she entered into the compact that made her a witch.
Rev. George Burroughs, sometimes supernally strong physically, because, as himself asserted, an Indian, invisible by others, helped him; able, by God’s help as he claimed, to read his brother’s thoughts; A freer and less formal religionist than most clergymen of his day, because of his high spiritual illumination; a humble but beneficent Christian—was, like his exemplar, made to yield up life at the call of such as cried, “Crucify him! crucify him!” If he was luminous, and spoke like an angel of light in the hour of his departure, he was not Satan transformed, but George Burroughs unvailing his genuine self.