The public mind being thus predisposed, four girls in Salem complained of being afflicted in the same manner with those in Boston. The physicians, unable to account for the disorder, attributed it to witchcraft, and an old Indian woman in the neighbourhood was selected as the witch. The attention bestowed on these girls gave them great importance; and not only confirmed them in the imposture, but produced other competitors who were ambitious of the same distinction. Several other persons were now bewitched; and not only the old Indian, but two other old women, the one bedridden, and the other subject to melancholy and distraction, were accused as witches. It was necessary to keep up the agitation already excited, by furnishing fresh subjects for astonishment; and in a short time, the accusations extended to persons who were in respectable situations. The manner in which these accusations were received, evidenced such a degree of public credulity, that the impostors seem to have been convinced of their power to assail with impunity, all whom caprice or malignity might select for their victims. Such was the prevailing infatuation, that in one instance, a child of five years old was charged as an accomplice in these pretended crimes; and if the nearest relatives of the accused manifested either tenderness for their situation, or resentment at the injury done their friends, they drew upon themselves the vengeance of these profligate impostors, and were involved in the dangers from which they were desirous of rescuing those with whom they were most intimately connected. For going out of church when allusions were made from the pulpit to a person of fair fame, a sister was charged as a witch; and for accompanying on her examination a wife who had been apprehended, the husband was involved in the same prosecution, and was condemned and executed. In the presence of the magistrates these flagitious accusers affected extreme agony, and attributed to those whom they accused, the power of torturing them by a look. The examinations were all taken in writing, and several of them are detailed at full length in Mr. Hutchinson's history of Massachusetts. They exhibit a deplorable degree of blind infatuation on one side, and of atrocious profligacy on the other, which if not well attested, could scarcely be supposed to have existed. Many persons of sober lives, and unblemished characters, were committed to prison; and the public prejudices had already pronounced their doom. Against charges of this nature, thus conducted, no defence could possibly be made. To be accused was to be found guilty. The very grossness of the imposition seemed to secure its success, and the absurdity of the accusation to establish the verity of the charge.