Rebecca West was eventually acquitted.

[14] It must not for a moment, however, be forgotten that these
confessions had been wrung from tortured creatures.

[15] Richard Carter and Henry Cornwall had testified that Margaret Moone
confessed to them. Probably she did, as she was doubtless at that time
under torture.

[16] The evidence offered against her well suggests on what slender
grounds a witch might be accused. "This Informant saith that the house
where this Informante and the said Mary did dwell together, was haunted
with a Leveret, which did usually sit before the dore: And this
Informant knowing that one Anthony Shalock had an excellent Greyhound
that had killed many Hares; and having heard that a childe of the said
Anthony was much haunted and troubled, and that the mother of the childe
suspected the said Mary to be the cause of it: This Informant went to
the said Anthony Shalock and acquainted him that a Leveret did usually
come and sit before the dore, where this Informant and the said Mary
Greenleife lived, and desired the said Anthony to bring downe his
Greyhound to see if he could kill the said Leveret; and the next day the
said Anthony did accordingly bring his Greyhound, and coursed it, but
whether the dog killed it this Informant knows not: But being a little
before coursed by Good-man Merrils dog, the dog ran at it, but the
Leveret never stirred, and just when the dog came at it, he skipped over
it, and turned about and stood still, and looked on it, and shortly
after that dog languished and dyed."

[17] See Bulstrode Whitelocke, _Memorials of English Affairs ..._
(London, 1682; Oxford, 1853), ed. of 1853, I, 501.

[18] "H. F."'s publication is the _True and exact Relation_ cited above
(note 11). He seems to have written it in the last of May, but inserted
verdicts later in the margin. Arthur Wilson, who was present, says that
18 were executed; Francis Peck, _Desiderata Curiosa_ (London, 1732-1735;
1779), ed. of 1779, II, 476. But Hopkins writes that 29 were condemned
at once and Stearne says about 28; quite possibly there were two trials
at Chelmsford. There is only one other supposition, _i. e._, that
Hopkins and Stearne confused the number originally accused with the
number hanged. For further discussion of the somewhat conflicting
evidence as to the number of these Essex witches and the dates of their
trial see appendix C, under 1645.

[19] _A Diary or an Exact Journall_, July 24-31, 1645, pp