pieces by a mob which credited all
that Richard Hathaway said and did. In 1701 she was taken before one Sir
Thomas Lane, who ordered her to be stript and searched, and let Hathaway
loose again on her to scratch her. After which he was well as before; and
then Sarah Morduck was committed, and prayers were offered up in the
churches for Hathaway, and collections made for him in the congregations,
and six or seven pounds at a time got for him, besides various other sums,
to bear his charges at the Assizes, and indemnify him for the evil the
witch had inflicted. At the Assizes (Guildford, July, 1701) Sarah Morduck
was brought out of prison to be tried for her life by the Lord Chief
Justice: with the usual result in his trials of witches: she was released,
but Hathaway took her place, and was committed to the Marshalsea as a
cheat and impostor, lying, for the first part of the time, well and
hearty, but afterwards falling into his fits again as if bewitched. He was
then experimented with; given another woman to scratch, under the idea
that it was Sarah; whom he scratched quite contentedly, and as well after
he had done so. When he found out his mistake he was blind and dumb again.
But now, it being specially desired to know the truth, when he brought up
his crooked pins, his hands were kept carefully out of his pockets, which
then were searched, and found plentifully supplied; and all the strange
noises which had been heard to issue out of his bed were discovered to
have been made by his own feet scratching the bedposts; and his miraculous
fasting was proved a cheat, for Mrs. Kensy's maid, who had got into his
confidence by a stratagem, brought him meat and drink privately, and Mr.
Kensy and his friends peeping through a private hole saw him eat it quite
composedly. So one by one his pretences were destroyed, and he was openly
convicted of cozening and imposture. The Lord Chief Justice thought this a
more cognizable crime than witchcraft, and condemned Richard Hathaway to
be imprisoned for a year, and to stand in the pillory thrice during the
period. Thus he was made a warning to all hysterical youths and maidens
who took to possession as a good trade, and who liked the prayers of the
faithful, and the money of the credulous, and the luxury of ill-treating
any one specially spited, and the attentions of the gentry, and the pity
of the commonalty, and all manner of petting and cossiting better than
coarse hard fare and the scan