The family of Mrs. Ann Putnam seem to have had constitutional traits that illustrate and explain her own character and conduct.  They were excitable and sensitive to an extraordinary degree.  Their judgment, reason, and physical systems, were subject to the power of their fancies and affections.  One of her brothers, in consequence of being badly coquetted with and jilted by a young widow, was thrown into an awful condition of body and mind “for about three-quarters of a year.”  The reason, health, and heart of another were broken; and he sunk into an early grave, in consequence of having been crossed in love.  The death of her sister Bayley may have been caused by the unhappy controversies in the village parish.  We have seen, and shall see, the all but maniac condition to which excitement brought her own mind.  At last, the heaviest blow that can fall upon a fond wife suddenly snapped the brittle cord of her life.  These considerations must be borne in mind, while we attempt to explain her conduct, and should throw the weight of pity and charity into the scales, if mortal judgment ventures to estimate her guilt.  They are known to the Infinite Mind, and never overlooked by divine mercy.

I have introduced these singular private details to illustrate what the documents all along show,—­that the proceedings against persons charged with witchcraft, in 1692, were instigated by all sorts of personal grudges and private piques, many of them of long standing, fomented and kept alive by an unhappy indulgence of unworthy feelings, always ready to mix themselves with popular excitements, and leading all concerned headlong to the utmost extent of mischief and wrong.

The case of Mary Bradbury has been allowed to occupy so large a space, because I desire to disabuse the public mind of a great error on this subject.  It has been too much supposed, that the sufferers in the witchcraft delusion were generally of the inferior classes of society, and particularly ignorant and benighted.  They were the very reverse.  They mostly belonged to families in the better conditions of life, and, many of them, to the highest social level.  They were all persons of great moral firmness and rectitude, as was demonstrated by their bearing under persecutions and outrage, and when confronting the terrors of death.  Their names do not deserve reproach, and their memories ought to be held in honor.

The following account of the examination of Elizabeth Cary of Charlestown, given by her husband, Captain Cary, a shipmaster, has the highest interest, as written at the time by one who was an eye-witness, and participated in the sufferings of the occasion:—­