I can find no evidence against the moral character of this woman. One person, at least, who participated largely in getting up accusations against her, acknowledged, in a death-bed repentance, the wrong she had done. Mr. Hale, the minister of the Beverly congregation, states, in a deposition, that a certain woman, "being in full communion in our church, came to me to desire that Goodwife Bishop, her neighbor, wife of[i.196] Edward Bishop, Jr., might not be permitted to receive the Lord's Supper in our church till she had given her satisfaction for some offences that were against her; namely, because the said Bishop did entertain people in her house at unseasonable hours in the night, to keep drinking and playing at shovel-board, whereby discord did arise in other families, and young people were in danger to be corrupted; that she knew these things, and had once gone into the house, and, finding some at shovel-board, had taken the pieces they played with and thrown them into the fire, and had reproved the said Bishop for promoting such disorders, but received no satisfaction from her about it." According to Mr. Hale's statement, the night after this complaint was brought to him, the woman was found to be distracted. "She continuing some time distracted, we sought the Lord by fasting and prayer." After a while, the woman recovered her senses, and, as Mr. Hale says he understood, expressed a suspicion "that she had been bewitched by Bishop's wife." He declares that he did not, at the time, countenance the idea, "hoping better of Goody Bishop." He says further, that he "inquired of Margaret King, who kept at or near the house," what she had observed concerning the woman who had been distracted. "She told me that she was much given to reading and searching the prophecies of Scripture." At length the woman appeared to have entirely recovered, went to Goody Bishop, gave satisfaction for what she had said and done against her, and they became[i.197] friends again. Mr. Hale goes on to say, "I was oft praying with and counselling of her before her death." She earnestly desired that "Edward Bishop might be sent for, that she might make friends with him. I asked her if she had wronged Edward Bishop. She said, not that she knew of, unless it were in taking his shovel-board pieces, when people were at play with them, and throwing them into the fire; and, if she did evil in it, she was very sorry for it, and desired he would be friends with her, or forgive her. This was the very day before she died." That night her distemper returned, and, in a paroxysm of insanity, she destroyed herself.