his Children were
so greatly Afflicted)," on behalf of his daughters, Elizabeth and
Deborah; the one aged about eleven, the other nine. Elizabeth had fits.
She remained as one wholly senseless or in a deep sleep, the only sign of
life being that, as she lay on cushions in the court, her stomach was
raised to a great height on the drawing of her breath. After she had
remained there for some time she came somewhat to herself, and then "laid
her Head on the Bar of the Court with a Cushion under it, and her hand and
her Apron upon that;" when Amy Duny was brought privately to touch her.
She had no sooner done so than the child, although not seeing her,
suddenly leaped up and caught her by the hand and face, and scratched her
till the blood came: after which she was easier. Samuel deposed that his
younger daughter, Deborah, was suddenly taken with a lameness in her legs,
which continued from the 10th to the 17th of October; when the day, being
fair and sunshiny, she desired to be carried to the east part of the
house, and then set upon a bank which looks towards the sea. While sitting
there, came Amy Duny to buy some herrings; but being denied she went away
grumbling, and on the instant "the Child was taken with the most violent
Fits, feeling most extream Pain in her Stomach, like the pricking of Pins,
and shreeking out in a most dreadful manner, like unto a Whelp, and not
like unto a sensible Creature." The doctor, not understanding this
disorder, and Amy Duny being under ill fame for a witch, Samuel Pacy
caused her to be set in the stocks, as the most powerful remedy he knew of
for his child's disorder. Being in the stocks, a neighbour told her that
she was suspected of being the cause of Mr. Pacy's trouble: whereupon Amy
answered, "Mr. Pacy keeps a great stir about his Child; let him stay until
he has done as much by his Children as I have by mine." And being further
examined what she had done to her children, she answered, "That she had
been fain to open her Child's Mouth with a Tap to give it victuals." When,
therefore, Elizabeth, the elder girl, fell ill within two days after this,
and could by no means be made to open her mouth without a good-sized tap
being put into it, the thing was certain, and might no longer be
gainsayed. And when they both vomited crooked pins, and as many as forty
broad-headed nails, and were deprived of sight and hearing, and cried out
perpetually against Amy Duny and Rose Cullender, and could n