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uncle tells me there be many who are stirring to get her respited for a time, at least, and he doth himself incline to favor it, especially as Rebecca hath labored much with him to that end, as also hath Major Pike and Major Saltonstall with the Governor, who himself sent for uncle last night, and they had a long talk together, and looked over the testimony against the woman, and neither did feel altogether satisfied with it. Mr. Norton adviseth for the hanging; but Mr. Willard, who has seen much of the woman, and hath prayed with her in the jail, thinks she may be innocent in the matter of witchcraft, inasmuch as her conversation was such as might become a godly person in affliction, and the reading of the Scripture did seem greatly to comfort her.
June 9.
Uncle Rawson being at the jail to-day, a messenger, who had been sent to the daughter of Goody Morse, who is the wife of one Hate Evil Nutter, on the Cocheco, to tell her that her mother did greatly desire to see her once more before she was hanged, coming in, told the condemned woman that her daughter bade him say to her, that inasmuch as she had sold herself to the Devil, she did owe her no further love or service, and that she could not complain of this, for as she had made her bed, so she must lie. Whereat the old creature set up a miserable cry, saying that to have her own flesh and blood turn against her was more bitter than death itself.
And she begged Mr. Willard to pray for her, that her trust in the Lord might not be shaken by this new affliction.