THE Jurors for our Soveraign Lord and Lady the King and Queen, present, That Susanna Martin of Amesbury in the County of Essex, Widow, The second Day of May, in the fourth Year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord and Lady William and Mary, by the Grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King and Queen, Defenders of the faith, &c. And divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable Arts, called Witchcrafts, and Sorceries, Wickedly and Felloniously hath used, practised, and exercised, at and within the Township of Salem, in the County of Essex aforesaid, in, upon, and against one Mary Wolcott of Salem-Village, in the County of Essex, Single-Woman, by which said wicked Arts the said Mary Wolcott, the Second Day [126] of May, in the fourth Year aforesaid, and at divers other days and times, as well before as after, was and is Tortured, Afflicted, Pined, Consumed, Wasted and Tormented; as also for sundry other Acts of Witchcraft, by said Susanna Martin, committed and done before and since that time, against the Peace of our Soveraign Lord and Lady, William and Mary, King and Queen of England; Their Crown and Dignity, and against the Form of the Statute, in that Case made and provided.
Return'd by the Grand-Jury, Billa Vera.
Witnesses—Sarah Vibber, Mary Wolcott, Mr. Samuel Parris, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mercy Lewis.
The Second Indictment[84] was for afflicting Mercy Lewis. Witnesses—Samuel Parris, Ann Putnam, Sarah Vibber, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Wolcott, Mercy Lewis.
Susanna Martin's Tryal.
The Trial of Susanna Martin, June 29, 1692. As is Printed, in Wonders of the Invisible World, from p. 114 to p. 116.
1. SUSANNA Martin, pleading not Guilty, to the Indictment of Witchcrafts brought in against her; there were produced the Evidences of many persons very sensibly and grievously bewitched; who all complained of the Prisoner at the Bar, as the person whom they believed the cause of their Miseries. And now as well as in the other Trials, there was an extraordinary endeavour by Witchcrafts, with cruel and frequent Fits, to hinder the poor Sufferers, from giving in their Complaints; which the Court was forced with much patience to obtain, by much waiting and watching for it.
There was now also an Account given, of what had passed at her first Examination before the Magistrates. The cast of her Eye then striking the Afflicted People to the Ground, whether they saw that cast or no: There were these among other Passages between the Magistrates and the Examinate.
Magistrate. Pray, what ails these People?