James Hathaway of Yarmouth was a stanch believer in “witchcraft and other strange fantasies”; but Hathaway was no puling mystic, and lived out ninety-five hale, hearty, vigorous years. A kinsman of his could give proof of the family strength by picking up a rum barrel in his own tavern and drinking from the bung; and the family eccentricity he evidenced by quietly dropping out of sight to save himself the trouble of defending a suit brought against him for embezzlement by a sister, and as quietly, after an interval of twenty-one years, returning to his wife and home. It had been thought he was drowned in the bay and to no avail “guns were fired, sweeps were dragged, and oil poured on the waters.” This same sister was a clever, well-read, witty creature, who married well, and for many years “associated with the intelligent, the gay and the fashionable.” She contributed to her popularity in the drawing-rooms of Boston and Marblehead by recounting with a lively tongue stories of witches she had seen and known, their tricks, their strange transformations. To the end, she vowed, she was a firm believer in witchcraft. At Barnstable, one Liza Towerhill, so called because her husband came from that region of London, was reputed to be a witch, able at will to transform herself into a cat, and having constant commerce with the devil even though to the casual eye she were industrious, hardworking, and pious. The colony does not have so clean a slate in respect of the persecution of Quakers. As early as 1656 the trouble began at Massachusetts Bay; but Plymouth lagged in the enactment of prohibitive laws against heretics, the execution of which, in the end, were more often than not evaded. Yet Plymouth had drifted far from the teachings of old John Robinson, who had charged his flock to keep an open mind “ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you.” The First Comers, who had heard and followed his words, were succeeded by men less well disciplined in mind and spirit, who were the more inclined to the strait doctrine of Massachusetts Bay. Then Rhode Island, under Roger Williams, became the citadel of tolerance; but Quakers, exiled from the north, continued to stream into the colony, to the no small discomfiture of its officers. The visitors, maddened by their wrongs, were not too courteous with those of high estate, and Winslow, particularly, was irritated by their demeanor, “sometimes starting up and smiting the table with a stick, then with his hand, then stamping with his foot, saying he could not bear it.” “Let them have the strapado!” cried he. Norton, arraigned by the General Court, had, in his turn, arraigned the Governor, whose “countenance full of majesty” in this instance, at least, availed him nothing. “Thomas, thou liest,” cried the Quaker. “Prince, thou art a malicious man.”