On the 18th of March, 1702, another petition was presented to the General Court, by persons of Andover, Salem Village, and Topsfield, who had suffered imprisonment and condemnation, and by the relations of others who had been condemned and executed on the testimony, as they say, of “possessed persons,” to this effect:—­

“Your petitioners being dissatisfied and grieved that (besides what the condemned persons have suffered in their persons and estates) their names are exposed to infamy and reproach, while their trial and condemnation stands upon public record, we therefore humbly pray this honored Court that something may be publicly done to take off infamy from the names and memory of those who have suffered as aforesaid, that none of their surviving relations nor their posterity may suffer reproach on that account.”

     [Signed by Francis Faulkner, Isaac Easty, Thorndike Procter,
     and eighteen others.]

On the 20th of July, in answer to the foregoing petitions, a bill was ordered by the House of Representatives to be drawn up, forbidding in future such procedures, as in the witchcraft trials of 1692; declaring that “no spectre evidence may hereafter be accounted valid or sufficient to take away the life or good name of any person or persons within this province, and that the infamy and reproach cast on the names and posterity of said accused and condemned persons may in some measure be rolled away.”  The council concurred with an additional clause, to acquit all condemned persons “of the penalties to which they are liable upon the convictions and judgments in the courts, and estate them in their just credit and reputation, as if no such judgment had been had.”

This petition was re-enforced by an “address” to the General Court, dated July 8, 1703, by several ministers of the county of Essex.  They speak of the accusers in the witchcraft trials as “young persons under diabolical molestations,” and express this sentiment:  “There is great reason to fear that innocent persons then suffered, and that God may have a controversy with the land upon that account.”  They earnestly beg that the prayer of the petitioners, lately presented, may be granted.  This petition was signed by Thomas Barnard, of Andover; Joseph Green, of Salem Village; William Hubbard, John Wise, John Rogers, and Jabez Fitch, of Ipswich; Benjamin Rolfe, of Haverhill; Samuel Cheever, of Marblehead; Joseph Gerrish, of Wenham; Joseph Capen, of Topsfield; Zechariah Symmes, of Bradford; and Thomas Symmes, of Boxford.  Francis Dane, of Andover, had died six years before.  John Hale, of Beverly, had died three years before.  The great age of John Higginson, of Salem,—­eighty-seven years,—­probably prevented the papers being handed to him.  It is observable, that Nicholas Noyes, his colleague, is not among the signers.