Note 13 — CONTENTS.

The number of wretched beings condemned and executed for this imaginary crime at the Assizes of Suffolk and Essex alone, in the year 1646, amounted to two hundred. Dr Zachary Gray affirms that he had seen an authentic account of persons who had so suffered in the whole of England, amounting to from three to four thousand. So late as the year 1697 seven persons, three men and four women, were burnt at Paisley for this alleged crime. We seldom sufficiently consider how near we are to those times of dreadful superstition and cruelty! How short a period it is since the light of a brighter day dawned upon us!