"In 1687 or 1688 began a more alarming instance than any which preceded it. Four children of John Goodwin, a grave man, a good liver, at the north part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard persons who were of the neighborhood speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remarkable for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, and were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh language; soon after which she fell into fits, which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sisters and two brothers followed her example, and it is said were tormented in the same parts of their bodies at the same time, although kept in separate apartments and ignorant of one another's complaints. One or two things were said to be very remarkable: all their complaints were in the daytime, and they slept comfortably all night: they were struck dead at the sight of the Assembly's Catechism, Cotton's Milk for Babes, and some other good books, but could read in Oxford's Jests, Popish and Quaker books, and the Common Prayer without any difficulty. Is it possible that the mind of man should be capable of such strong prejudices as that a suspicion of fraud should not immediately arise? But attachments to modes and forms in religion had such force that some of these circumstances seem rather to have confirmed the credit of the children. Sometimes they would be deaf, then dumb, then blind; and sometimes all these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, &c., and the marks of wounds were afterward to be seen. The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house; after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others persevered, and the magistrates then interposed, and the old woman was apprehended; but upon examination would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be disordered in her senses. Upon the report of physicians that she was _compos mentis_ she was executed, declaring at her death the children should not be relieved. The eldest, after this, was taken into a minister's family, where at first she behaved orderly, but after a time suddenly fell into her fits. The account of her affliction is in print; some things are mentioned as extraordinary which tumblers are every day taught to perform, others seem more than natural; but it was a time of great credulity. The children returned to their ordinary behavior, lived