ng: The suspected witch was placed cross-legged on a
stool in the centre of the room. She was closely watched and kept
without food for four-and-twenty hours. Doors and windows remained open
to watch for the entrance of some of the devil's imps. These might come
in the form of a fly, a wasp, a moth, or some other insect. The work of
the watchers was to kill every insect that came into the room. But if
one escaped, it was clear proof that this was one of the witch's
familiars.

Wherever Hopkins travelled numerous convictions followed. These were so
numerous that suspicion was aroused, not of the genuineness of the
convictions, but of Hopkins's knowledge concerning the locality of the
witches. In defence he published in 1647 a tract entitled "The Discovery
of Witches; in answer to several Queries lately delivered to the Judge
of Assize for the County of Norfolk; and now published by Mathew
Hopkins, Witchfinder, for the benefit of the whole Kingdom." The charge
against Hopkins was that he had been supplied by the devil with a
memorandum of all the witches, and so was able to find them where others
failed. Absurd as the charge was, it found credence, and although his
end is wrapped in obscurity, it is said that he was finally seized
himself on a charge of sorcery, tried by his own favourite water
test--and floated. One cannot but hope that tradition is in this case
trustworthy.

It is difficult, nowadays, to realise the gravity with which these
trials were undertaken. An outline of a very famous witch trial, before
an eminent judge in the latter part of the seventeenth century, will
best serve as an illustration. Before me there lies a little tract of
some sixty pages, printed "for William Shrewsbury at the Bible in Duck
Lane," and bearing on the title page the following description:--

"At the Assizes and general gaol delivery, held at Bury St. Edmunds for
the County of Suffolk, the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of
the Reign of our Sovereign, Lord King Charles II., before Mathew Hale,
Knight, Lord Chief Baron of His Majesties Court of Exchequer; Rose
Callender and Amy Duny, Widows, both of Leystoff, in the county
aforesaid, were severally indicted for bewitching Elizabeth and Anne
Durent, Jane Bocking, Susan Chandler, William Durent, Elizabeth and
Deborah Pacy and the said Callender and Duny, being arrainged upon the
same indictments, pleaded not guilty; and afterwards upon a long
evidence, were found guilty