CHAPTER XI
"The planters of New England were Englishmen, not exempt from English prejudices in favor of English institutions, laws and usages ... They had not been taught to question the wisdom or the humanity of English criminal law. They were as unconscious of its barbarism, as were the parliaments which had enacted or the courts which dispensed it." Blue Laws, True and False (p. 15), J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL.
"It would seem a marvellous panic, this that shook the rugged reasoners in its iron grasp, and led to such insanity as this displayed toward Alse Young, did we not know that it was but the result of a normal inhuman law confirmed by a belief in the divine, the direct legacy of England, the unquestionable utterance of Church and State."
One Blank of Windsor
, ANNIE ELIOT TRUMBULL.
This brief review of witchcraft in some of its historical aspects, of its spread to the New England colonies, of its rise and suppression in the Connecticut towns, with the citations from the original records which admit no challenge of the facts, may be aptly closed by what is believed to be a complete list of the Connecticut witchcraft cases, authenticated by conclusive evidence of time, place, incident, and circumstance.
Some minor questions may be put, or kept in controversy, as one writer or another, who regards history as a matter of opinion, not of fact, and relying on tradition or hearsay evidence or on superficial investigation, gives a place to guesswork instead of truth, to historical conceits instead of historical verities.
A RECORD OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO CAME UNDER SUSPICION OR ACCUSATION OF WITCHCRAFT IN CONNECTICUT, AND WHAT BEFELL THEM.
Herein are written the names of all persons in anywise involved in the witchcraft delusion in Connecticut, with the consequences to them in indictments, trials, convictions, executions, or in banishment, exile, warnings, reprieves, or acquittals, so far as made known in any tradition, document, public or private record, to this time.
MARY JOHNSON. Windsor, 1647.