They speak of their “distressed condition in prison,—­a company of poor distressed creatures as full of inward grief and trouble as they are able to bear up in life withal.”  They refer to the want of “food convenient” for them, and to “the coldness of the winter season that is coming which may despatch such out of the way that have not been used to such hardships,” and represent the ruinous effects of their absence from their families, who were at the same time required to maintain them in jail.  On the 18th of October, the two ministers of Andover, Francis Dane and Thomas Barnard, with twenty-four other citizens of Andover, addressed a similar memorial to the Governor and General Court, in which we find the first public expression of condemnation of the proceedings.  They call the accusers “distempered persons.”  They express the opinion that their friends and neighbors have been misrepresented.  They bear the strongest testimony in favor of the persons accused, that several of them are members of the church in full communion, of blameless conversation, and “walking as becometh women professing godliness.”  They relate the methods by which they had been deluded and terrified into confession, and show the worthlessness of those confessions as evidences against them.  They use this bold and significant language:  “Our troubles we foresee are likely to continue and increase, if other methods be not taken than as yet have been; and we know not who can think himself safe, if the accusations of children and others who are under a diabolical influence shall be received against persons of good fame.”  On the 2d of January, 1693, the Rev. Francis Dane addressed a letter to a brother clergyman, which is among the files, and was probably designed to reach the eyes of the Court, in which he vindicates Andover against the scandalous reports got up by the accusers, and says that a residence there of forty-four years, and intimacy with the people, enable him to declare that they are not justly chargeable with any such things as witchcraft, charms, or sorceries of any kind.  He expresses himself in strong language:  “Had charity been put on, the Devil would not have had such an advantage against us, and I believe many innocent persons have been accused and imprisoned.”  He denounces “the conceit of spectre evidence,” and warns against continuing in a course of proceeding that will procure “the divine displeasure.”  A paper signed by Dudley Bradstreet, Francis Dane, Thomas Barnard, and thirty-eight other men and twelve women of Andover, was presented to the Court at Salem to the same effect.

None of the persons named by Brattle can present so strong a claim to the credit of having opposed the witchcraft fanaticism before the close of the year 1692, as Francis Dane, his colleague Barnard, and the citizens of Andover, who signed memorials to the Legislature on the 18th of October, and to the Court of Trials about the same time.  There is, indeed, one conclusive proof that the venerable senior pastor