“The answer of some ministers to the questions pr-pounded to them by the Honored Magistrates, Octobr 20, 1669.  To ye 1st Quest whether a plurality of witnesses be necessary, legally to evidence one and ye same individual fact?  Wee answer.”

“That if the proofe of the fact do depend wholly upon testimony, there is then a necessity of a plurality of witnesses, to testify to one & ye same individual fact; & without such a plurality, there can be no legall evidence of it.  Jno 8, 17.  The testimony of two men is true; that is legally true, or the truth of order. & this Cht alledges to vindicate ye sufficiency of the testimony given to prove that individual facte, that he himselfe was ye Messias or Light of the World.  Mat. 26, 59, 60.”

“To the 2nd quest.  Whether the preternatural apparitions of a person legally proved, be a demonstration of familiarity with ye devill?  Wee anser, that it is not the pleasure of ye Most High, to suffer the wicked one to make an undistinguishable representation of any innocent person in a way of doing mischiefe, before a plurality of witnesses.  The reason is because, this would utterly evacuate all human testimony; no man could testify, that he saw this pson do this or that thing, for it might be said, that it was ye devill in his shape.”

“To the 3d & 4th quests together:  Whether a vitious pson foretelling some future event, or revealing of a secret, be a demonstration of familiarity with the devill?  Wee say thus much.”

“That those things, whither past, present or to come, which are indeed secret, that is, cannot be knowne by human skill in arts, or strength of reason arguing from ye corse of nature, nor are made knowne by divine revelation either mediate or immediate, nor by information from man, must needes be knowne (if at all) by information from ye devill:  & hence the comunication of such things, in way of divination (the pson prtending the certaine knowledge of them) seemes to us, to argue familiarity with ye devill, in as much as such a pson doth thereby declare his receiving the devills testimony, & yeeld up himselfe as ye devills instrument to comunicate the same to others.”

And meanwhile Katherine herself had not been idle even in durance.  With a dignity becoming such a communication, and in a desperate hope that justice and mercy might be meted out to her, she addressed a petition to the court setting forth with unconscious pathos some of the wrongs and sufferings she had endured in person and estate; and one may well understand why under such great provocation she told Michael Griswold that he would hang her though he damned a thousand souls, and as for his own soul it was damned long ago.  Vigorous and emphatic words, for which perhaps Katherine was punished enough, as she was adjudged to pay Michael in two actions for slander, L25 and costs in one and L15 and costs in the other.

This was Katherine’s appeal: 

Filed:  Wid.  Harrisons greuances presented to the court 6th of Octobr 1669.