Besides this it was sworn that he had treated his wives, having been twice married, very harshly, and would pretend, when he had been absent from home, that he could tell what had been said to them, and that he persuaded them to swear, and to oblige themselves by a writing, which in the printed account of the trial is called “a Covenant,” not to reveal his secrets, and that they had privately complained to the neighbors that their house was haunted by spirits. One of his wife’s brothers also swore that going out after strawberries they rode very softly—slowly, I suppose—two or three miles, when Burroughs went into the bushes, after which they rode back a quick pace, and when they came near home, to their astonishment found him on foot with them, and that he fell to chiding his wife for talking with her brother about him, and said he knew their thoughts, which his brother intimated was more than the Devil knew, but Burroughs replied his god told him. The prisoner said, in his defence, a man was with him when his brother left him, which was also supposed to be the black man. This was the sum of the evidence. He is said to have used many twistings and turnings, and to have contradicted himself in making his defence. At his execution he concluded his prayer with the Lord’s prayer, probably to show his innocence, for it was generally received that a witch could not say the Lord’s prayer, and it was used as a test at the examinations when several of the old women, as children often do, blundered at _give_ and _forgive_ in the fourth and fifth petitions, and it was improved against them. September 9th, _Martha Corey_, _Mary Esty_, _Alice Parker_, _Ann Pudcator_, Dorcas Hoar and Mary Bradbury were tried; and Sept. 17 _Margaret Scott_, _Wilmot Read_, _Samuel Wardwell_, _Mary Parker_, Abigail Faulkner, Rebekah Eames, Mary Lacey, Ann Foster, Abigail Hobbs, and all received sentence of death. Those in italics were executed September 22d. Mary Esty, who was sister to Nurse, put into the court a petition in which she tells them that, although she was conscious of her own innocence, yet she did not ask her own life, but prayed them before they condemned any more they would examine some of the confessing witches, who she knew had belied themselves and others, which she was sure would appear in the world to which she was going, if it did not in this world. Those that were not executed probably confessed their guilt. All whose examinations remain on the files, of which there are three or four, did so. Wardwell had confessed, but recanted and suffered. His own wife, as well as his daughter, accused him and saved themselves. There are a great number of instances of children and parents accusing each other. I have met with no other than this of husbands or wives, and surely this one ought not to have been suffered.