necessary to try the offence where it was committed, her body being in Middlesex and her specter in Essex, it is probable they were under doubt. About a week after, viz. the latter end of May, some of the afflicted accused Capt. John Alden,[57] of Boston. He had been many years master of a sloop in the country service employed between Boston and the eastern country, to supply the garrisons, &c.; and the justices allowed had always had the character of an honest man, though one of them, Gedney, told him at his examination he then saw cause to think otherwise. Alden, in the account he gives, says that the accuser pointed first to another man and said nothing, but that upon the man who held her his stooping down to her ear, she cried out _Alden, Alden_, &c. All were ordered into the street and a ring made, and then she cried out, _There stands Alden, a bold fellow with his hat on, sells powder and shot to the Indians, lies with the squaws and has papooses_. He was immediately taken into custody of the marshal [George Herrick] and required to deliver up his sword. A further examination was had in the meeting house, his hands held open by the officer that he might not pinch the afflicted, and upon their being struck down at the sight of him and making their usual cries he was committed to the jail in Boston, where he lay fifteen weeks, and then was prevailed on by his friends to make his escape, and to absent himself until the consternation of the people was a little abated, and they had recovered their senses. By this time about one hundred persons were in the several prisons[58] charged with witchcraft. The court of Oyer and Terminer began at Salem the first week in June [June 2d]. Only one of the accused, viz. Bridget Bishop,[59] alias Oliver, was brought upon trial. She had been charged with witchcraft twenty years before, by a person who acknowledged his guilt in accusing her upon his death-bed; but being a fractious old woman the losses the neighbors met with in their cattle and poultry, or by oversetting their carts, &c., were ascribed to her, and now given in evidence. This, together with the hearsay from the specters sworn to in court by the afflicted and confessing confederates, and an excrescence found some where upon her which was called a teat, was thought by court and jury plenary proof, and she was convicted, and on the 10th of June executed. The court adjourned to the 30th of June, and in the mean time the Governor and Council desired the opinion of several ministers upon the state of things as they then stood, which was given as follows:— “The return of several ministers consulted by his excellency and the honourable council upon the present witchcraft in Salem village. _Boston, June 15th, 1692._