ause the rich also had the means to travel and live away from home, they could and did escape to New York, and were even encouraged to do so by some authorities. Ordinary people could not be confident even of due process. The sheriff, without warrant, sometimes confiscated the property of an accused couple, leaving their children destitute. At the hearings, the accusers sat through the interrogations, frequently interrupting, adjusting their stories to fit the testimony they heard and sometimes even assaulting the accused. Onlookers coached and prompted the witnesses. The principle investigating judge, John Hawthorne, showed extreme prejudice. Then, too, most of the key witnesses had admittedly resorted to occult practices themselves, and were children or slaves. Both court and clergy were inconsistent in their attitude toward witchcraft. While in theory condemning any recourse to occult powers, in practice they were more often under the influence of English legal assumptions. In England the witch crises produced proportionally many fewer accusations and a much lower conviction rate than elsewhere, because in England witches were tried not for trafficking with the occult, but for the actual harm done to others as a result. The resort to white magic to ward off witchcraft was easily forgiven by the Puritans. Even stranger, accused witches were commanded to use their power to heal the afflictions of those who claimed to be suffering from the witch attacks. When the Salem Village minister's slave, John Indian, a major figure in the witchcraft accusations, had a fit in court, the magistrates ordered [Elizabeth Cary] to touch him, in order to his cure, but her head must be turned another way, lest instead of curing, she should make him worse, by her looking on him, her hand being guided to take hold of his. Most of the accused witches was women J.W. Davidson and M. H. Lytle writes:… out of 178 accused witches who can be identifie...
