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  PART II THE SEPARATE COLONIES

CHAPTER III — NEW ENGLAND

16. Salem Witches (1692)

T pleased God in the Year of our Lord 1692 to visit the People at a place called Salem Village in NEW-ENGLAND, with a very Sore and Grievous Affliction, in which they had reason to believe, that the Soveraign and Holy GOD was pleased to permit Satan and his Instruments, to Affright and Afflict, those poor Mortals in such an Astonishing And Unusual manner.

Now, I having for some time before, attended the work of the Ministry in that Village, the Report of those Great Afflictions, came quickly to my notice ; and the more readily, because the first Person Afflicted, was in the Minister's Family, who succeeded me, after I was removed from them; in pitty therefore to my Christian Friends, and former Acquaintance there, I was much concerned about them, frequently consulted with them, and fervently (by Divine Assistance) prayed for them; but especially my Concern was augmented, when it was Reported, at an Examination of a Person suspected for Witchcraft, that my Wife and Daughter, who Dyed Three Years before, were sent out of the World under the Malicious Operations of the Infernal Powers; as is more fully represented in the following Remarks. I did then Desire, and was also Desired, by some concerned in the Court, to be there present, that I