[71] Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, was also under suspicion. Judge Sewall, March 3, 1692-3, wrote to him a letter expressing disbelief in such reports, and sympathy for him and his family. The letter is in Judge Sewall’s Diary under that date. P. [72] “As to what you mention, concerning that poor creature in your town that is afflicted, and mentioned my name to yourself and son, I return you hearty thanks for your intimation about it, and for your charity therein mentioned; and I have great cause to bless God, who, of his mercy hitherto, hath not left me to fall into such an horrid evil.” _Extract from letter [of Secretary Allen] to I. Mather, Hartford, 18 March, 92 [-3]._ H. [73] It is singular that Gov. Hutchinson did not give the date of this confession, which is noted in Calef. In this manuscript he says, “sometime after.” In the final draft he says, “it was not long before one of the judges was sensible of his error.” The confession was made January 14, 1696-7, nearly five years after the error was committed to which he alludes. Up to this time, he gave little or no evidence of contrition in his Diary. He was now under deep domestic affliction. Of his thirteen children he had lost eight. On the 25th of December, 1696, he buried his little Sarah, two years old, and on the 22d of May previous an infant son. His Diary shows that his mind was in a state of abject despondency. After the religious type of the period he regarded these repeated strokes of Divine Providence as brought upon him by his own unworthiness. On the 11th of January, three days before the appointed fast, he writes, “God helped me to pray more than ordinarily, that he would make up our loss in the burial of our little daughter and other children, and that [he] would give us a child to serve him, pleading with him as the institutor of marriage, and the author of every good work.” Calef (p. 144) gives an abstract from memory of Judge Sewall’s confession; and Dr. Abiel Holmes, who had seen the Diary, gives, in _American Annals_ (vol. ii. p. 9), a brief extract. The following, copied, by permission, from his original Diary now in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is the paper entire: [Sidenote: _N. B. Bill put up at Fast._] “Copy of the Bill I put up on the Fast Day, giving it to Mr. Willard as he passed by, and standing up at the reading of it, and bowing when finished, in the afternoon.