(Vol. v., p. 394.)
The particulars your correspondent asks for have not been furnished; but on
what authority, _to move the previous question_, does the alleged fact of
such a trial and execution at Huntingdon in 1716 for witchcraft, stated by
Mr. Wills, and adopted by the _Quarterly Rev._, rest? Mr. Wills (_Sir Roger
de Coverley_, Notes, p. 126.) mentions also the execution of two women at
Northampton for witchcraft just before the _Spectator_ began to be
published (March 1, 1710-11), but gives no reference to any original source
to support his statement. On the other hand, Hutchinson, the first edition
of whose _Essay concerning Witchcraft_ was published in 1718, and the
second in 1720, who gives a chronological table of facts, informs us that
the last execution in England for witchcraft was that at Exeter of Susan
Edwards, Mary Trembles, and Temperance Lloyd in 1682 (vid. _Essay_, p. 41.,
1st edit.). He was too painstaking a writer to be in ignorance of cases
which had occurred so recently; and he had the assistance, in collecting
his materials, of the two chief justices Parker and King, and Chief Baron
Bury, to whom the work is dedicated. Through their means he must have been
informed of what had taken place on the circuits, if any cases of
witchcraft on which convictions had arisen had actually come before the
judges. When it is remembered what attention was directed to the trial of
Jane Wenham in 1712, who, though condemned, was not executed, and on whose
case a great number of pamphlets were written, it can scarcely be supposed
that in four years after two persons, one only nine years old (I take the
account in Mackay's _Popular Delusions_, vol. iii.), should have been tried
and executed for witchcraft without public attention being called to the
circumstance. I may add that in the _Historical Register_ for 1716, which
notices in the domestic occurrences all trials of interest, there is no
mention of such a case; and that in two London newspapers for 1716, which I
have in a complete series, though enumerating other convictions on the
circuit, I have equally searched without success. As it is a matter of
considerable historical interest to ascertain accurately when the last
execution for witchcraft took place in England, I should be glad if any of
your correspondents would refer me to the authority on which the statements
of the trials circ. 1710 and in 1716 are founded. Mr. Wright, I observe,
does not notice them, and his words are--
"The case of Jane Wenham is the last instance of a witch being
condemned by the verdict of an English jury."--_Narratives of Sorcery
and Magic_, vol. ii. p. 326.