a considerate survey and scrutiny of all that has reached us from the day of his arrest to the moment of his death, have left a decided impression, that he was an able, intelligent, true-minded man; ingenuous, sincere, humble in his spirit; faithful and devoted as a minister; and active, generous, and disinterested as a citizen.  His descendants, under his own name and the names of Newman, Fowle, Holbrook, Fox, Thomas, and others, have been numerous and respectable.  The late Isaiah Thomas, LL.D., was one of them.

From the account given of John Procter, in the First Part, it is apparent that he was a person of decided character, and, although impulsive and liable to be imprudent, of a manly spirit, honest, earnest, and bold in word and deed.  He saw through the whole thing, and was convinced that it was the result of a conspiracy, deliberate and criminal, on the part of the accusers.  He gave free utterance to his indignation at their conduct, and it cost him his life.

A few days before his trial, he made his will.  There is no reference in it to his particular situation.  His signature to the document is accurately represented among the autographs given in this work.  It was written while the manacles were on him.  Notwithstanding the danger to which any one was exposed who expressed sympathy for convicted or accused persons, or doubt of their guilt, a large number had the manliness to try to save this worthy and honest citizen.  John Wise, one of the ministers of Ipswich, heads the list of petitioners from that place.  The document is in his handwriting.  Thirty-one others joined in the act, many of them among the most respectable citizens of that town.  Mr. Wise was a learned, able, and enlightened man.  He had a free spirit, and was perhaps the only minister in the neighborhood or country, who was discerning enough to see the erroneousness of the proceedings from the beginning.  The petition is as follows:—­

“The Humble and Sincere Declaration of us, Subscribers, Inhabitants in Ipswich, on the Behalf of our Neighbors, John Procter and his Wife, now in Trouble and under Suspicion of Witchcraft.

     “TO THE HONORABLE COURT OF ASSISTANTS NOW SITTING IN BOSTON.

“Honored and Right Worshipful,—­The aforesaid John Procter may have great reason to justify the Divine Sovereignty of God under these severe remarks of Providence upon his peace and honor, under a due reflection upon his life past; and so the best of us have reason to adore the great pity and indulgence of God’s providence, that we are not exposed to the utmost shame that the Devil can invent, under the permissions of sovereignty, though not for that sin forenamed, yet for our many transgressions.  For we do at present suppose, that it may be a method within the severer but just transactions of the infinite majesty of God, that he sometimes may permit Sathan to personate, dissemble, and thereby abuse