“WORTHY SIR,—­I have herewith sent you the names of the prisoners that are desired to be transmitted by habeas corpus; and have presumed to send you a copy thereof, being more, as I presume, accustomed to that practice than yourself, and beg pardon if I have infringed upon you therein.  I fear we shall not this week try all that we have sent for; by reason the trials will be tedious, and the afflicted persons cannot readily give their testimonies, being struck dumb and senseless, for a season, at the name of the accused.  I have been all this day at the Village, with the gentlemen of the council, at the examination of the persons, where I have beheld strange things, scarce credible but to the spectators, and too tedious here to relate; and, amongst the rest, Captain Alden and Mr. English have their mittimus.  I must say, according to the present appearances of things, they are as deeply concerned as the rest; for the afflicted spare no person of what quality soever, neither conceal their crimes, though never so heinous.  We pray that Tituba the Indian, and Mrs. Thacher’s maid, may be transferred as evidence, but desire they may not come amongst the prisoners but rather by themselves; with the records in the Court of Assistants, 1679, against Bridget Oliver, and the records relating to the first persons committed, left in Mr. Webb’s hands by the order of the council.  I pray pardon that I cannot now further enlarge; and, with my cordial service, only add that I am, sir, your most humble servant,

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Hutchinson says that there was no colony or province law against witchcraft in force when the trials began; and that the proceedings were under an act of James the First, passed in 1603.  By that act, persons convicted were to be sentenced to “the pains and penalties of death as felons.”  By the colonial law, conviction of capital crimes did not incapacitate the party affected from disposing of property.  In this and other respects, there were points of difference, which caused some inconvenience in carrying out the practice of the mother-country; and the attorney-general had to supply the want of experience in the local officers.

It may here be mentioned, that no record of the doings of this special court are now to be found, and our only information respecting them is obtained in brief and imperfect statements of writers of the time.  Perhaps Hutchinson had the use of the records.  He gives the dates of the several sessions of the courts, and of the conviction and execution of the prisoners.  Some of the depositions sworn to in court are on file, but without giving in many instances the date when thus offered in the trials.  In some cases, they state when they were laid before the grand jury.  Only a small part of them are preserved.  The matter they contain was, to a considerable extent, brought forward at the preliminary examinations, and has been already adduced.  In the following account of the trials, some further use will be made of these depositions.