Rev. Increase Matherâs Report of his Conversation in Prison with Sarah Wilson, Sr.

Goodwife Wilson said that she was in the dark as to some things in her confession. Yet she asserted that, knowingly, she never had familiarity with the Devil; that, knowingly, she never consented to the afflicting of any person, &c. However, she said that truly she was in the dark as to the matter of her being a witch. And being asked how she was in the dark, she replied, that the afflicted persons crying out of her as afflicting them made her fearful of herself; and that was all that made her say that she was in the dark.

(Charles W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft [Boston, 1867] II, 406.)

from The Salem Witchcraft Papers, p. 855

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