A50149:151
Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain…
Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain General and Governor in Chief of the province of the Massachuset-Bay, New England, containing the memorable changes undergone, and actions performed by him / written by one intimately acquainted with him.Pietas in patriam the life of His Excellency Sir William Phips, Knt. late Captain General and Governour in Chief of the province of the Massachuset-Bay, New England, containing the memorable changes undergone, and actions performed by him / written by one intimately acquainted with him.
London: printed by Sam. Bridge for Nath. Hiller, 1697
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The afflicted Wretches were horribly Distorted and Convulsed; they were Pinched Black and Blew; Pins would be run every where in their Flesh; they would be scalded until they had Blisters raised on them; and a thousand other things before Hundreds of Witnesses were done unto them, evidently Preternatural: For, if it were Preternatural, to keep a rigid Fast, for Nine, yea, for Fifteen Days together; or, if it were Preternatural, to have ones Hands tied close together, with a Rope to be plainly seen, and then by unseen Hands presently pulled up a great way from the Earth, before a crowd of People: Such Preternatural Things were endured by them.
The afflicted Wretches were horribly Distorted and Convulsed; they were Pinched Black and Blew; Pins would be run every where in their Flesh; they would be scalded until they had Blisters raised on them; and a thousand other things before Hundreds of Witnesses were done unto them, evidently Praeternatural: For, if it were Praeternatural, to keep a rigid Fast, for Nine, yea, for Fifteen Days together; or, if it were Praeternatural, to have ones Hands ty'd close together, with a Rope to be plainly seen, and then by unseen Hands presently pull'd up a great way from the Earth, before a croud of People: Such Praeternatural Things were endured by them.
But of all the Preternatural Things which befell these People, there were none more unaccountable than those, wherein the praestigious Daemons would ever now and then cover the most Corporeal Things in the World, with a Fascinating Mist of Invisibility. As now; A Person was cruelly assaulted by a Spectre, that, she said, run at her with a Spindle, though no Body else in the Room could see either the Spectre or the Spindle: At last in her Agonies, giving a snatch at the Spectre, she pulled the Spindle away; ⟨p. 70⟩and it was no sooner got into her Hand, but the other Folks then present, beheld that it was indeed a real, proper, Iron Spindle; which when they locked up very safe, it was nevertheless by the Daemons taken away to do farther Mischief.