60 NOTES TO BOOK I. She maintained, that the doctrine of good works was rather an impediment, than necessary to obtain salvation ; and that " the covenant of works is a mere broken reed, which is useless and dan¬ gerous, and must be expelled by the impression of the Spirit." These were the darling themes of this fair Antinomian. Her enemies hatched a story against her which travelled rapidly over the country, and which enabled them to expel her from the colony. It asserted, that she had at one birth brought forth thirty monsters, answering in hideousness and number to the abominable errors she had promulgated. She was accordingly banished to Rhode Island . This unfortunate woman, driven from her house during an inclement season, mis¬ carried, and suffered great misery on the occasion. The pressure of poverty or ill treatment drove her afterwards to a Dutch settle¬ ment in the state of York , where she was, with all her family, butchered by the Indians. During this religious calamity, the ladies were pretty anxious to establish the right of absolute rule in theological discussions. The wives, in fact, influenced their husbands, and the young women their lovers, so completely, that they generally maintained the claim they arrogated. The excesses which the belief in witchcraft produced were, if possible, still more extraordinary. This horrible superstition first appeared in the house of a minister at Salem. He had two daugh¬ ters, who, after the ages of twelve years, were afflicted with hyste¬ rical convulsions. The father thought them bewitched ; and, fixing his suspicions on an Indian woman, who lived in the house, by the severest whipping he extorted from her the confession of being a witch. This poor savage was accordingly hanged, and her body exposed to birds of prey. Other women, seduced by the pride of exciting public attention, immediately brought themselves to believe that hysteria, which proceeded only from the nature of their sex, was owing to the influence of infernal agency. Three persons were consequently suspected by them of sorcery, and most speedily imprisoned, condemned, hanged, and their bodies, agreeably to the law of the colony, exposed to wild beasts and birds of prey. Fifteen