To complete the proceedings against Burroughs at this time, and raise to the highest point the public abhorrence of him, effective use was made of Deliverance Hobbs, the wife of William Hobbs, of whom I have spoken before.  She was first examined April 22.  During the earlier part of the proceedings, she maintained her integrity and protested her innocence in a manner which shows that her self-possession held good.  But the examination was protracted; her strength was exhausted; the declarations of the accusers, their dreadful sufferings, the prejudgment of the case against her by the magistrates, and the combined influences of all the circumstances around her, broke her down.  Her firmness, courage, and truth fled; and she began to confess all that was laid to her charge.  The record is interesting as showing how gradually she was overwhelmed and overcome.  But while mentioning the names of others whom she pretended to have been associated with as witches, she did not speak of Burroughs.  She referred to those who had been brought out before that date, but not to him.  The intended movement against him had not then been divulged.  On the 3d of May, the day before he arrived, after it was known that officers had been sent to arrest him, she was examined again.  On this occasion, she charged Burroughs with having been present, and taken a leading part in witch-meetings, which she had described in detail, at her first examination, without mentioning him at all.  This proves that the confessing prisoners were apprised of what it was desired they should say, and that their testimony was prepared for them by the managers of the affair.  The following is one of the confessions made by this woman, subsequent to her public examination.  I give it partly to show what a flood of falsehood was poured upon Burroughs, and partly because it will serve as a specimen of the stuff of which the confessions were composed:—­

“The First Examination of Deliverance Hobbs in Prison.—­She continued in the free acknowledging herself to be a covenant witch:  and further confesseth she was warned to a meeting yesterday morning, and that there was present Procter and his wife, Goody Nurse, Giles Corey and his wife, Goody Bishop alias Oliver; and Mr. Burroughs was their preacher, and pressed them to bewitch all in the village, telling them they should do it gradually, and not all at once, assuring them they should prevail.  He administered the sacrament unto them at the same time, with red bread and red wine like blood.  She affirms she saw Osburn, Sarah Good, Goody Wilds, Goody Nurse:  and Goody Wilds distributed the bread and wine; and a man in a long-crowned white hat sat next the minister, and they sat seemingly at a table, and they filled out the wine in tankards.  The notice of this meeting was given her by Goody Wilds.  She, herself affirms, did not nor would not eat nor drink, but all the rest did, who were there present; therefore they threatened