afterwards escaped, tells this: "Having
been there [in prison] one night, next morning the jailer put irons on
her legs (having received such a command); the weight of them was about
eight pounds: these with her other afflictions soon brought her into
convulsion fits, so that I thought she would have died that night. I
sent to entreat that the irons might be taken off; but all entreaties
were in vain...."

"John Proctor and his wife being in prison, the sheriff came to his
house and seized all the goods, provisions and cattle ... and left
nothing in the house for the support of the children...."

"Old Jacobs being condemned, the sheriff and officers came and seized
all he had; his wife had her wedding ring taken from her ... and the
neighbours in charity relieved her."

"The family of the Putnams ... were chief prosecutors in this business."

"And now nineteen persons having been hanged, and one pressed to death,
and eight more condemned, in all twenty and eight ... about fifty
having confessed ... above an hundred and fifty in prison, and above two
hundred more accused; the special commission of oyer and terminer comes
to a period...."

During the summer of 1692 the disastrous material and financial results
of the reign of terror became so evident that the shrewd business sense
of the colonist became alarmed. Harvests were ungathered, fields and
cattle were neglected, numerous people sold their farms and moved
southward; some did not await the sale but abandoned their property. The
thirst for blood could not last, especially when it threatened
commercial ruin. Moreover, the accusers at length aimed too high;
accusations were made against persons of rank, members of the governor's
family, and even the relatives of the pastors themselves. "The killing
time lasted about four months, from the first of June to the end of
September, 1692, and then a reaction came because the informers began to
strike at important persons, and named the wife of the governor. Twenty
persons had been put to death ... and if the delusion had lasted much
longer under the rules of evidence that were adopted everybody in the
colony except the magistrates and ministers would have been either hung
or would have stood charged with witchcraft."[32]

The Puritan clergymen have been severely blamed for this strange wave of
fanaticism, and no doubt, as leaders in the movement, they were largely
responsible; but even their power and authority could n