The author of the work from which this account is extracted, indignantly inquires, “by what law the magistrates of Newcastle could send to another nation for a mercenary person to try women for witches? and set the bellman to cry for them to be brought in?—and give 20_s._ a piece to the former to condemn them?” These queries we know not how to answer, but by supposing that the whole was a _lawless_, as well as a most iniquitous, barbarous, and scandalous business. The magistrates of Newcastle certainly appear on this occasion a vile and infamous crew, whose memory ought to be held up to the horror of perpetual detestation. How much better the magistrates of Lynn would have appeared, had we so particular an account of their proceedings, when they sent for Hopkins, it is impossible now to say. Their conduct, to say the least of it, appears sufficiently dark and despicable. While we feel and express a just indignation against the witchfinders, as well as against the spies and informers and such like miscreants, we ought not to forget how much the existence, sufferance, and employment of them reflect on the character of the rulers and magistrates of those days, and even of the nation, or public at large; for had these been sufficiently enlightened and humanized, those detestable wretches had never been encouraged and employed, or even endured in the country. How baleful and deplorable therefore must intellectual blindness or ignorance be in any community? how desirable, important, and necessary for all descriptions of men, is the true knowledge of their respective rights and duties! Had our magistrates and legislators always possessed that knowledge, and acted accordingly, our annals had never been disgraced, as they are, with the recital of so many acts of injustice and oppression, or with such shocking accounts of the torturing, burning, and hanging of so many reputed criminals, under the misapplied and odious names of witches, heretics, and blasphemers. SECTION III. _Additional observations on Witchcraft_, _and on the absurd and superstitious notions entertained by our ancestors concerning witches_, _as well as their deep-rooted and deadly antipathy against all those whom they considered as such_.