The author’s notes are indicated by stars, &c., and are signed H. The editor’s notes are indicated by numerals, and are signed P. W. F. P. * * * * * On [mutilated][1] May, at a general council, there was an appointment of sheriffs, justices and other civil officers, and, among the rest, Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of witches. Upon this occasion the Governor suffered the council to choose the officers, and he gave or refused his consent to the choice—a mistake which no other governor has made, and which was giving up a right derived to him from the charter, the great difference between a nomination and assent being very obvious. The old constitution being dissolved, it was absolutely necessary an Assembly should be called. What was the rule of law in the meantime might be made a question; but at the first meeting of the General Assembly (the 8th of June) an act passed that all the laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and the Colony of New-Plymouth, not being repugnant to the laws of England, nor inconsistent with the charter, should be in force to the 10th of November, 1692, in the respective colonies, except where other provisions should be made by acts of assembly; and all justices of the peace had the same power given them in the execution of laws which magistrates used to have. No other acts were passed except two or three relative to the revenue; an act for erecting a naval office; another to enable the Governor, with the advice of the council, for six months to come, to raise and transport, or march the militia into either of the governments of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Narragansett or New-York; and another act for establishing a court of sessions of the peace, and inferior court of common pleas. The assembly was adjourned on the second of July to the second Wednesday in October. The confusion occasioned by the supposed witchcraft seems to have been the reason why nothing more was done towards a body of laws better adapted to the new constitution; for on the 2d of June the commissioners held their special court at Salem. Before I relate their proceedings, I will collect, as far as I am able, the several instances of what was called Witchcraft, from the beginning of the country.