"There was one Mary Johnson try'd at Hartford in this countrey," says Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia Christi Americana, "upon an indictment of 'familiarity with the devil,' and was found guilty thereof, chiefly upon her own confession.... In the time of her imprisonment, the famous Mr. Stone was at great pains to promote her conversion from the devil to God; and she was by the best observers judged very penitent, both before her execution and at it; and she went out of the world with comfortable hopes of mercy from God through the merit of our Saviour. Being asked what she built her hopes upon, she answered, Upon these words: 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;' and these: 'There is a fountain set open for sin and uncleanness.' And she dy'd in a frame extreamly to the satisfaction of them that were spectators of it."
In 1768 John Wesley prefaced an account of an apparition that had been related by a girl named Elizabeth Hobson, by some extremely remarkable sentences on the subject. "It is true, likewise," he wrote, "that the English in general, and, indeed, most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all account of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay to those that do not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge that these are at the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence spread through the land, in direct opposition, not only to the Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best men in all ages and nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not) that the giving up of witchcraft is in effect giving up the Bible."
"In the first year of this persecution, Cotton Mather wrote a history of the earliest of the trials. This history was introduced to the English public by Richard Baxter, who declared in his preface that 'that man must be a very obdurate Sadducee who would not believe it.' Not content with having thus given the weight of his great name to the superstition, Baxter in the following year published his treatise on The Certainty of the World of Spirits; in which he collected, with great industry, an immense number of witch cases; reverted in extremely laudatory terms to Cotton Mather and his crusade; and denounced, in unmeasured language, all who were skeptical upon the subject. This work appeared in 1691, when the panic in America had not yet reached its height; and being widely circulated there, is said to have contributed much to stimulate the persecutions. The Pilgrim Fathers had brought to America the seeds of the persecution; and at the same time when it was rapidly fading in England, it flourished with fearful vigor in Massachusetts. Cotton Mather and Parris proclaimed the frequency of the crime; and, being warmly supported by their brother divines, they succeeded in creating a panic through the whole country. A commission was issued. A judge named Stoughton, who appears to have been a perfect creature of the clergy, conducted the trials. Scourgings and tortures were added to the terrorism of the pulpit, and many confessions were obtained. The few who ventured to oppose the prosecutions were denounced as Sadducees and infidels. Multitudes were thrown into prison, others fled from the country, abandoning their property, and twenty-seven persons were executed. An old man of eighty was pressed to death--a horrible sentence, which was never afterward executed in America. [Giles Corey was the name of the poor victim. He refused to plead, to save his property from confiscation. He urged the executioners, it is stated by Upham, in his History of Witchcraft, to increase the weight which was crushing him; he told them that it was no use to expect him to yield; that there could be but one way of ending the matter, and that they might as well pile on the stones. Calef says, that as his body yielded to the pressure, his tongue protruded from his mouth, and an official forced it back with his cane.] The ministers of Boston and Charlestown drew up an address, warmly thanking the commissioners for their zeal, and expressing their hope that it would never be relaxed."