William Penn presided, in his judicial character, at the trial of two Swedish women for witchcraft; the grand jury, acting under instructions from him, having found bills against them.  They were saved, not in consequence of any peculiar reluctance to proceed against them arising out of the nature of the alleged crime, but only from some technical defect in the indictment.  If it had not been for this accidental circumstance, as the annalist of Philadelphia suggests, scenes similar to those subsequently occurring in Salem Village might have darkened the history of the Quakers, Swedes, Germans, and Dutch, who dwelt in the City of Brotherly Love and the adjacent colonies.  There had been trials and executions for witchcraft in other parts of New England, and excitements had obtained more or less currency in reference to the assaults of the powers of darkness upon human affairs.  These incidents prepared the way for the delusion in Salem, and provided elements to form its character.  They must not, therefore, be wholly overlooked.  But the memorials for their elucidation are very defective.  Hutchinson’s “History of Massachusetts” is, perhaps, the most valuable authority on the subject.  He enjoyed an advantage over any other writer, before, since, or hereafter, so far as relates to the witchcraft proceedings in 1692; for he had access to all the records and documents connected with it, a great part of which have subsequently been lost or destroyed.  His treatment of that particular topic is more satisfactory than can elsewhere be found.  But of incidents of the sort that preceded it, his information appears to have been very slight and unreliable.  It is a singular fact, that we know more of the history of the first century of New England than was known by the most enlightened persons of the intermediate century.  There was no regular organized newspaper press, the commemorative age had not begun, and none seem to have been fully aware of the importance of putting events on record.  The publication, but a few years since, of the colonial journals of the first half-century of Massachusetts; researches by innumerable hands among papers on file in public offices; the printing of town-histories, and the collections made by historical and genealogical societies,—­have rescued from oblivion, and redeemed from error, many points of the greatest interest and importance.

Winthrop, in his “Journal,” gives an account of the execution of Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, who had been tried and condemned by the Court of Assistants.  The charges against her were, that she had a malignant touch, so that many persons,—­“men, women, and children,”—­on coming in contact with her, were “taken with deafness, vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness;” that she practised physic, and her medicines, “being such things as (by her own confession) were harmless, as aniseed, liquors, &c., yet had extraordinary violent effects;” and that they found on her body, “upon