Here and there a few brave souls dared to protest against the outrage; but they were exceedingly few.  Lady Phipps, wife of the governor, risked her life by signing a paper for the discharge of a prisoner condemned for witchcraft.  The jailor reluctantly obeyed and lost his position for allowing the prisoner to go; but in after years the act must have been a source of genuine consolation to him.  Only fear must have restrained the more thoughtful citizens from similar acts of mercy.  Even children were imprisoned, and so cruelly treated that some lost their reason.  In the New England History and General Register (XXV, 253) is found this pathetic note:  “Dorcas Good, thus sent to prison ’as hale and well as other children,’ lay there seven or eight months, and ’being chain’d in the dungeon was so hardly used and terrifyed’ that eighteen years later her father alleged ’that she hath ever since been very, chargeable, haveing little or no reason to govern herself.’"[31]

How many extracts from those old writings might be presented to make a graphic picture of that era of horror and bloodshed.  No one, no matter what his family, his manner of living, his standing in the community, was safe.  Women feared to do the least thing unconventional; for it was an easy task to obtain witnesses, and the most paltry evidence might cause most unfounded charges.  And the only way to escape death, be it remembered, was through confession.  Otherwise the witch or wizard was still in the possession of the devil, and, since Satan was plotting the destruction of the Puritan church, anything and anybody in the power of Satan must be destroyed.  Those who met death were martyrs who would not confess a lie, and such died as a protest against common liberty of conscience.  No monument has been erected to their memory, but their names remain in the old annals as a warning against bigotry and fanaticism.  Though some suffered the agonies of a horrible death, there were innumerable women who lived and yet probably suffered a thousand deaths in fear and foreboding.  Hear once more the words of Robert Calef’s ancient book, More Wonders of the Invisible World:  “It was the latter end of February, 1691, when divers young persons belonging to Mr. Parris’s family, and one or more of the neighbourhood, began to act after a strange and unusual manner, viz., by getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and stools, and to use sundry odd postures and antick gestures, uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches....  The physicians that were called could assign no reason for this; but it seems one of them ... told them he was afraid they were bewitched....  March the 11th, Mr. Parris invited several neighbouring ministers to join with him in keeping a solemn day of prayer at his own house....  Those ill affected ... first complained of ... the said Indian woman, named Tituba; she confessed that the devil urged her to sign a book ... and also to work mischief to the children, etc.”