Steps were taken to get out a warrant.  John Putnam and Benjamin Hutchinson went to Salem to Hathorne for the purpose.  They must have started soon after eight.  Hathorne issued the warrant forthwith.  It is dated May 20.  Herrick went with it to the house of Isaac Easty, made the arrest, sent his prisoner to the jail in Salem, and returned himself to John Putnam’s house “about midnight;” staid to witness the apparently mortal sufferings of Mercy until “about break of day;” returned to Salem; had the examination before Hathorne, at Thomas Beadle’s:  the whole thing was finished, Mary Easty in irons, information of the result carried to John Putnam’s, and Mercy’s agonies ceased that afternoon, as Edward Putnam testifies.

I have given this particular account of the circumstances that led to and attended Mary Easty’s second arrest, because the papers belonging to the case afford, in some respects, a better insight of the state of things than others, and because they enable us to realize the power which the accusing girls exercised.  The continuance of their convulsions and spasms for such a length of time, the large number of persons who witnessed and watched them in the broad daylight, and the perfect success of their operations, show how thoroughly they had become trained in their arts.  I have presented the occurrences in the order of time, so that, by estimating the distances traversed and the period within which they took place, an idea can be formed of the vehement earnestness with which men acted in the “hurrying distractions of amazing afflictions” and overwhelming terrors.  This instance also gives us a view of the horrible state of things, when any one, however respectable and worthy, was liable, at any moment, to be seized, maligned, and destroyed.

Mary Easty had previously experienced the malice of the persecutors.  For two months she had suffered the miseries of imprisonment, had just been released, and for two days enjoyed the restoration of liberty, the comforts of her home, and a re-union with her family.  She and they, no doubt, considered themselves safe from any further outrage.  After midnight, she was roused from sleep by the unfeeling marshal, torn from her husband and children, carried back to prison, loaded with chains, and finally consigned to a dreadful and most cruel death.  She was an excellent and pious matron.  Her husband, referring to the transaction nearly twenty years afterwards, justly expressed what all must feel, that it was “a hellish molestation.”

One of the most malignant witnesses against Mary Easty was “Goodwife Bibber.”  She obtruded herself in many of the cases, acting as a sort of outside member of the “accusing circle,” volunteering her aid in carrying on the persecutions.  It was an outrage for the magistrates or judges to have countenanced such a false defamer.  There are, among the papers, documents which show that she ought to have been punished as a calumniator, rather than be called to utter, under oath, lies against respectable people.  The following deposition was sworn to in Court:—­