On the 28th of May, warrants were issued against Martha Carrier, of Andover; Elizabeth Fosdick, of Malden; Wilmot Read, of Marblehead; Sarah Rice, of Reading; Elizabeth How, of Topsfield; Captain John Alden, of Boston; William Procter, of Salem Farms; Captain John Flood, of Rumney Marsh; ——­ Toothaker and her daughter, of Billerica; and ——­ Abbot, between Topsfield and Wenham line.  On the 30th, a warrant was issued against Elizabeth, wife of Stephen Paine, of Charlestown; on the 4th of June, against Mary, wife of Benjamin Ireson, of Lynn.  Besides these, there are notices of complaints made and warrants issued against a great number of people in all parts of the country:  Mary Bradbury, of Salisbury; Lydia and Sarah Dustin, of Reading; Ann Sears, of Woburn; Job Tookey, of Beverly; Abigail Somes, of Gloucester; Elizabeth Carey, of Charlestown; Candy, a negro woman; and many others.  Some of them have points of interest, demanding particular notice.

The case of Martha Carrier has some remarkable features.  It has been shown, by passages already adduced, that every idle rumor; every thing that the gossip of the credulous or the fertile imaginations of the malignant could produce; every thing, gleaned from the memory or the fancy, that could have an unfavorable bearing upon an accused person, however foreign or irrelevant it might be to the charge, was allowed to be brought in evidence before the magistrates, and received at the trials.  We have seen that a child under five years of age was arrested, and put into prison.  Children were not only permitted, but induced, to become witnesses against their parents, and parents against their children.  Husbands and wives were made to criminate each other as witnesses in court.  When Martha Carrier was arrested, four of her children were also taken into custody.  An indictment against one of them is among the papers.  Under the terrors brought to bear upon them, they were prevailed on to be confessors.  The following shows how these children were trained to tell their story:—­

     “It was asked Sarah Carrier by the magistrates,—­

     “How long hast thou been a witch?—­Ever since I was six
     years old.

     “How old are you now?—­Near eight years old:  brother Richard
     says I shall be eight years old in November next.

     “Who made you a witch?—­My mother:  she made me set my hand
     to a book.

     “How did you set your hand to it?—­I touched it with my
     fingers, and the book was red:  the paper of it was white.

“She said she never had seen the black man:  the place where she did it was in Andrew Foster’s pasture, and Elizabeth Johnson, Jr., was there.  Being asked who was there besides, she answered, her aunt Toothaker and her cousin.  Being asked when it was, she said, when she was baptized.

     “What did they promise to give you?—­A black dog.

     “Did the dog ever come to you?—­No.