The examination and commitment of Mary Easty, on the 21st of April, have already been described.  For some reason, and in a way of which we have no information, she was discharged from prison on the 18th of May, and wholly released.  This seems to have been very distasteful to the accusing girls.  They were determined not to let it rest so; and put into operation their utmost energies to get her back to imprisonment.  On the 20th of May, Mercy Lewis, being then at the house of John Putnam, Jr., was taken with fits, and experienced tortures of unprecedented severity.  The particular circumstances on this occasion, as gathered from various depositions, illustrate very strikingly the skilful manner in which the girls managed to produce the desired effect upon the public mind.

Samuel Abbey, a neighbor, whether sent for or not we are not informed, went to John Putnam’s house that morning, about nine o’clock.  He found Mercy in a terrible condition, crying out with piteous tones of anguish, “Dear Lord, receive my soul.”—­“Lord, let them not kill me quite.”—­“Pray for the salvation of my soul, for they will kill me outright.”  He was desired to go to Thomas Putnam’s house to bring his daughter Ann, “to see if she could see who it was that hurt Mercy Lewis.”  He found Abigail Williams with Ann, and they accompanied him back to John Putnam’s.  On the way, they both cried out that they saw the apparition of Goody Easty afflicting Mercy Lewis.  When they reached the scene, they exclaimed, “There is Goody Easty and John Willard and Mary Whittredge afflicting the body of Mercy Lewis;” Mercy at the time laboring for breath, and appearing as choked and strangled, convulsed, and apparently at the last gasp.  “Thus,” says Abbey, “she continued the greatest part of the day, in such tortures as no tongue can express.”  Mary Walcot was sent for.  Upon coming in, she cried out, “There is the apparition of Goody Easty choking Mercy Lewis, pressing upon her breasts with both her hands, and putting a chain about her neck.”  A message was then despatched for Elizabeth Hubbard.  She, too, saw the shape of Goody Easty, “the very same woman that was sent home the other day,” aided in her diabolical operations by Willard and Whittredge, “torturing Mercy in a most dreadful manner.”  Intelligence of the shocking sufferings of Mercy was circulated far and wide, and people hurried to the spot from all directions.  Jonathan Putnam, James Darling, Benjamin Hutchinson, and Samuel Braybrook reached the house during the evening, and found Mercy “in a case as if death would have quickly followed.”  Occasionally, Mercy would have a respite; and, at such intervals, Elizabeth Hubbard would fill the gap.  “These two fell into fits by turns; the one being well while the other was ill.”  Each of them continued, all the while, crying out against Goody Easty, uttering in their trances vehement remonstrances against her cruel operations, representing her as bringing their winding-sheets and coffins, and threatening