After the lapse of a week, preparations were completed to renew operations, and a higher and more commanding character given to them.  On Monday, April 4, Captain Jonathan Walcot and Lieutenant Nathaniel Ingersoll went to the town, and, “for themselves and several of their neighbors,” exhibited to the assistants residing there, John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, complaints against “Sarah Cloyse, the wife of Peter Cloyse of Salem Village, and Elizabeth Procter of Salem Farms, for high suspicion of sundry acts of witchcraft.”  There the plan of proceedings in reference to the above-said parties was agreed upon.  It was the result of consultation; communications probably passing with the deputy-governor in Boston, or at his residence in Cambridge.  On the 8th of April, warrants were duly issued, ordering the marshal to bring in the prisoners “on Monday morning next, being the eleventh day of this instant April, about eleven of the clock, in the public meeting-house in the town.”  It had been arranged, that the examination should not be, as before, in the ordinary way, before the two local magistrates, but, in an extraordinary way, before the highest tribunal in the colony, or a representation of it.  For a preliminary hearing, with a view merely to commitment for trial, this surely may justly be characterized as an extraordinary, wholly irregular, and, in all points of view, reprehensible procedure.  When the day came, the meeting-house, which was much more capacious than that at the village, was crowded; and the old town filled with excited throngs.  Upon opening proceedings, lo and behold, instead of the two magistrates, the government of the colony was present, in the highest character it then had as “a council”!  The record says,—­

“Salem, April 11, 1692.—­At a Council held at Salem, and present Thomas Danforth, Esq., deputy-governor; James Russell, John Hathorne, Isaac Addington, Major Samuel Appleton, Captain Samuel Sewall, Jonathan Corwin, Esquires.”

Russell was of Charlestown, Addington and Sewall of Boston, and Appleton of Ipswich.  Mr. Parris, “being desired and appointed to write the examination, did take the same, and also read it before the council in public.”  This document has not come down to us; but Hutchinson had access to it, and the substance of it is preserved in his “History of Massachusetts.”

The marshal (Herrick) brought in Sarah Cloyse and Elizabeth Procter, and delivered them “before the honorable council:”  and the examination was begun.

The deputy-governor first called to the stand John Indian, and plied him, as was the course pursued on all these occasions, with leading questions:—­

     “John, who hurt you?—­Goody Procter first, and then Goody
     Cloyse.

     “What did she do to you?—­She brought the book to me.

     “John, tell the truth:  who hurts you?  Have you been
     hurt?—­The first was a gentlewoman I saw.