Some that had served on the juries that had condemned the victims put forth a paper admitting their delusion and begging pardon of God and man for their mistake.[92] The impressive story of Sewall’s penitence, and public confession of his fault in the South Church in Boston, is well known; more consistent and logical was the declaration of the stern-tempered Stoughton, that when he sat in judgment he had the fear of God before his eyes, and gave his opinion according to the best of his understanding; and, although it might appear afterwards that he had been in error, yet he saw no necessity for a public acknowledgment of it.[93] Parris, whose part in these acts of folly and delusion had been the most prominent of all, and who was strongly suspected of having used the popular frenzy to ruin some of his personal antagonists, was compelled to resign his position and leave the people whom he had so grossly misled.[94] Noyes, whose delusion had been at least sincere, made public confession of his fault, and was forgiven by his congregation and by the community that had erred with him. Thus ended one of the most painful episodes in the early history of New England. The other colonies in America were not so entirely free from this superstition that they should reproach the Puritans for it as a special and peculiar product of their religious system. There were cases in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, though there is no record of any one having been put to death for the offence in those colonies. In Pennsylvania, under the prudent instructions of William Penn, who seems to have been less superstitious than the Massachusetts Quakers, the jury brought in a verdict that the person accused was guilty of “being suspected of being a witch,” and, fortunately, at that time suspicion was not punishable.[95] In New York, a certain Ralf Hall and his wife were tried in 1665, but were acquitted, and an attempt, in 1670, to create an excitement in Westchester over Katharine Harrison, who had moved thither from Connecticut, was sternly suppressed.[96] There were trials for witchcraft in Maryland in the last quarter of the seventeenth century; and in Virginia in 1705, thirteen years later than the Salem trials, a witch was ducked by order of court.[97]