It was necessary to be at once cautious and rapid in their movements, to prevent the public from getting information which, by reaching the ears of Burroughs, might put him on his guard.  It was no easy thing to secure him at the great distance of his place of residence.  If he should become apprised of what was going on, his escape into remoter and inaccessible settlements would have baffled the whole scheme.  Nothing therefore was done at the village, but the steps to arrest him originated at Boston.  Elisha Hutchinson, a magistrate there, issued the proper order, addressed to John Partridge of Portsmouth, Field-marshal of the provinces of New Hampshire and Maine, dated April 30, 1692, to arrest George Burroughs, “preacher at Wells;” he being “suspected of a confederacy with the Devil.”  Partridge was directed to deliver him to the custody of the marshal of Essex, or, not meeting him, was requested to bring him to Salem, and hand him over to the magistrates there.  The “afflicted children” had begun, shortly before, to use his name.  Abigail Hobbs had resided some years before at Casco; and from her they obtained all the scandal she had heard there, or chose to fabricate to suit the purpose of the prosecutors.  The way in which the minds of the deluded people were worked up against Mr. Burroughs is illustrated in a deposition subsequently made to this effect:—­

Benjamin Hutchinson testified, that, on the 21st of April, 1692, about eleven o’clock in the forenoon, Abigail Williams told him that she saw a person whom she described as Mr. George Burroughs, “a little black minister that lived at Casco Bay.”  Mr. Burroughs was of small stature and dark complexion.  She gave an account of his wonderful feats of strength, said that he was a wizard; and that he “had killed three wives, two for himself and one for Mr. Lawson.”  She affirmed that she saw him then.  Mr. Burroughs, it will be borne in mind, was at this time a hundred miles away, at his home in Maine.  Hutchinson asked her where she saw him.  She said “There,” pointing to a rut in the road made by a cart-wheel.  He had an iron fork in his hand, and threw it where she said Burroughs was standing.  Instantly she fell into a fit; and, when she came out of it, said, “’You have torn his coat, for I heard it tear.’—­’Whereabouts?’ said I.  ‘On one side,’ said she.  Then we came into the house of Lieutenant Ingersoll; and I went into the great room, and Abigail came in and said, ‘There he stands.’  I said, ‘Where? where?’ and presently drew my rapier.”  Then Abigail said, he has gone, but “‘there is a gray cat.’  Then I said, ‘Whereabouts?’ ‘There!’ said she, ‘there!’ Then I struck with my rapier, and she fell into a fit; and, when it was over, she said, ‘You killed her.’” Poor Hutchinson could not see the cat he had killed any more than Burroughs’s coat he had torn.  Abigail explained the mystery to his satisfaction, by saying that the spectre of Sarah Good had come in at the moment, and carried