The General Court, on the 17th of October, 1710, passed an act, that “the several convictions, judgments, and attainders be, and hereby are, reversed, and declared to be null and void.”  In simple justice, they ought to have extended the act to all who had suffered; but they confined its effect to those in reference to whom petitions had been presented.  The families of some of them had disappeared, or may not have had notice of what was going on; so that the sentence which the Government acknowledged to have been unjust remains to this day unreversed against the names and memory of Bridget Bishop, Susanna Martin, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Wilmot Read, and Margaret Scott.  The stain on the records of the Commonwealth has never been fully effaced.  What caused this dilatory and halting course on the part of the Government, and who was responsible for it, cannot be ascertained.  Since the presentation of Abigail Faulkner’s petition in 1700, the Legislature, in the popular branch at least, and the Governor, appear to have been inclined to act favorably in the premises; but some power blocked the way.  There is some reason to conjecture that it was the influence of the home government.  Its consent to have the prosecutions suspended, in 1692, was not very cordial, but, while it approved of “care and circumspection therein,” expressed reluctance to allow any “impediment to the ordinary course of justice.”

On the 17th of December, 1711, Governor Dudley issued his warrant for the purpose of carrying out a vote of the “General Assembly,” “by and with the advice and consent of Her Majesty’s Council,” to pay “the sum of L578. 12_s._” to “such persons as are living, and to those that legally represent them that are dead;” which sum was divided as follows:—­

John Procter and wife L150 0 0
George Jacobs 79 0 0
George Burroughs 50 0 0
Sarah Good 30 0 0
Giles Corey and wife 21 0 0
Dorcas Hoar 21 17 0
Abigail Hobbs 10 0 0
Rebecca Eames 10 0 0
Mary Post 8 14 0
Mary Lacy 8 10 0
Ann Foster 6 10 0
Samuel Wardwell and wife 36 15 0
Rebecca Nurse 25 0 0
Mary Easty 20 0 0
Mary Bradbury 20 0 0
Abigail Faulkner 20 0 0
John Willard 20 0 0
Sarah Wildes 14 0 0
Elizabeth How 12 0 0
Mary Parker 8 0 0
Martha Carrier 7 6 0
                           ----------
                           L578 12 0
                           ==========