The _Gazette_ states that the examination gave great occasion to conclude that they were concerned in the poisoning, and a week after the inquest they were arrested and confined in the ancient jail in Salem where the persons accused of witchcraft were imprisoned many years before. They were indicted and brought to trial. John Adams, afterwards President of the United States, then thirty-four years of age, was counsel for the accused. Jonathan Ames turned King's evidence against his mother. It was midnight before the counsel began their arguments and two of the three judges were explicit in summing up the evidence, that there was "a violent presumption" of guilt, but at nine o'clock in the morning the jury came in and rendered a verdict of "not guilty." May the result be attributed to John Adams's eloquence and logic or to the vagaries of our jury system?
But we are a long way from the third session of the Court of Assistants held September 28, 1630. Not until this time did the law begin to reach out for its victims. John Goulworth was ordered whipped and afterwards set in the stocks for felony, not named. One other was whipped for a like offence and two Salem men, one of whom has given us an honored line of descendants, were sentenced to sit in the stocks for four hours, for being accessory thereunto. Richard Clough's stock of strong water was ordered seized upon, because of his selling a great quantity thereof to servants, thereby causing much disorder. No person was to permit any Indian to use a gun under a penalty of £10. Indian corn must not be sold or traded with Indians or sent away without the limits of the Patent. Thomas Gray was enjoined to remove himself out of the Patent before the end of March, and the oath was administered to John Woodbury, the newly elected constable from Salem.
At the next session William Clark, who had been brought to book at a previous Court for overcharging Mr. Baker for cloth, now was prohibited cohabitation and frequent keeping company with Mrs. Freeman and accordingly was placed under bonds for a future appearance. Three years later this offender became one of the twelve who went to Agawam and founded the present town of Ipswich, and ten years later still another William Clark of Ipswich was sentenced to be whipped "for spying into the chamber of his master and mistress and reporting what he saw."