“R. C.,” the author of the tract, I have no doubt, was Richard Chamberlayne, Secretary of the Province of New-Hampshire in 1682. That he resided at Great Island appears by his signature to several depositions printed in _New-Hampshire Hist. Coll._, vols. ii. and viii. Chamberlayne and Barefoot were among the prosecutors of Joshua Moody at Portsmouth the next year for not conducting his services according to the English Prayer Book, and occasioned his imprisonment for three months. It appears that Increase Mather was aware that Secretary Chamberlayne had prepared an account of the Walton case, and he wrote to Mr. Moody to procure it, together with a narrative of the Hortando case. Mr. Moody, July 14, 1683, writes to Mr. Mather: “About that at G. Walton’s, because my interest runs low with the Secretary, I have desired Mr. Woodbridge to endeavor the obtaining it; and if he can get it, shall send it by the first; though if there should be any difficulty thereabout, you may do pretty well with what you have already.” (_Mather Papers_, p. 359.) Mr. Moody writes again, August 23: “My endeavors also have not been a-wanting to obtain the other [the Walton case], but find it difficult. If more may be gotten, you may expect [it] when I come, or else must take up with what you had from me at first, which was the sum of what was then worthy of notice, only many other particular actings of like nature had been then and since. It began on a Lord’s day, June 11, 1682, and so continued for a long time, only there was some respite now and then. The last thing [printed _sight_] I have heard of was the carrying away of several axes in the night, notwithstanding they were laid up, yea locked up very safe, as the owner thought at least, which was done this spring. [Postscript.] Before sealing of my letter came accidentally to my hand this enclosed that I had from William Morse of Newbury concerning the troubles at his house in 1679. If it may be of use to me, you may please to peruse and return it.” (_Ibid._ 360.) The Secretary doubtless declined to furnish the unlovely Puritans at the Bay with his narrative, and, on returning to England, he printed it in London in 1698. The tract shows that Church-of-England men were quite as observant of signs and wonders as the Puritans. “Who that peruses these preternatural occurrences,” asks the writer, “can possibly be so much of an enemy to his own soul and irrefutable reason, as obstinately to oppose himself to, or confusedly fluctuate in, the opinion and doctrine of demons or spirits, and witches?”