'As to the method which the Salem justices do take in their examinations, it is truly this; a warrant being issued out to apprehend the persons that are charged and complained of by the afflicted children as they are called, said persons are brought before the justices, the afflicted being present. The justices ask the apprehended why they afflict those poor children, to which the apprehended answer, they do not afflict them. The justices order the apprehended to look upon the said children, which, accordingly, they do; and at the time of that look (I dare not say by that look, as the Salem gentlemen do) the afflicted are cast into a fit. The apprehended are then blinded and ordered to touch the afflicted; and at that touch, though not by that touch (as above) the afflicted do ordinarily come out of their fits. The afflicted persons then declare and affirm, that the apprehended have afflicted them; upon which the apprehended persons, though of never so good repute, are forthwith committed to prison on suspicion for witchcraft.'--'Such was the excess of their stupidity, that to the most dubious crime in the world, they joined the most uncertain proofs.'--'A person ought to have been a magician to be able to clear himself from the imputation of magic.' The first instance of reputed witchcraft in the town of Salem, took place in the family of Mr Parris, minister of Salem, and very soon after, one or two in the neighborhood were afflicted in a similar manner, and a day of prayer was kept on the occasion. The persons who complained of being afflicted, were a daughter and a niece of Mr Parris, girls of ten or eleven years of age; and these were soon followed by two other girls. They made similar complaints, and exhibited antic gestures and tricks, similar to those of Goodwin's children, two or three years before. The physician, unable to account for the complaint, pronounced them bewitched. They named several women whose spectres they saw in their fits, tormenting them, and in particular Tituba, an Indian woman belonging to Mr Parris's family. She had been trying some experiments, which she pretended to be used in her own country, in order to find out the witch; upon this, the children cried out against the poor Indian as appearing to them, pinching, pricking, and tormenting them, and they fell into fits. Tituba acknowledged that she had learned how to find out a witch, but denied that she was one herself. Several private fasts were kept at the minister's house, and several more public by the whole village, and then a general fast through the colony. This probably had a tendency to bring the afflicted into notice; which, with the pity and compassion of those who visited them, encouraged and confirmed them in their designs, and increased their numbers. Tituba, as she said, being beat and threatened by her master to make her confess, and to accuse her sister witches, as he termed them, did confess that the devil