[29] the only one of the judges concerned in the witchcraft trial who made public confession in later life, standing before the congregation to own that he had been wrong in his rulings, and spending one day in each of the remaining thirty-nine years of his life in fasting and prayer for the wrong he had done. In 1700 he wrote a tract against African slavery. In his diary he often wrote with energy and power, but never so quaintly as in describing his love affairs, if such they may be called, with Puritan ladies, in the effort to secure a third wife. His second having died on May 26, 1720, he proceeded Oct. 1 (four months later) to make overtures for a third:--
8r. 1. [1720] Saturday, I dine at Mr. Stoddard's: from thence I went to Madam Winthrop's just at 3. Spake to her, saying, my loving wife died so soon and suddenly, 't was hardly convenient for me to think of marrying again; however I came to this resolution, that I would not make any court to any person without first consulting with her. Had a pleasant discourse about 7 (seven) single persons sitting in the Fore-seat 7r. 29th, viz. Madm Rebekah Dudley, Catharine Winthrop, Bridget Usher, Deliverance Legg, Rebekah Loyd, Lydia Colman, Elizabeth Bellingham. She propounded one and another for me; but none would do, said Mrs. Loyd was about her age. [Mrs. Winthrop herself was
