Some of the
slaves made confessions after conviction in the hope of saving their lives;
and these, dubious as they were, furnished the chief corroborations of
detail which the increasingly fluent testimony of Mary Burton received.
Some of the confessions, however, were of no avail to those who made them.
Quack and Cuffee, for example, terror-stricken at the stake, made somewhat
stereotyped revelations; but the desire of the officials to stay the
execution with a view to definite reprieve was thwarted by their fear of
tumult by the throng of resentful spectators. After a staggering number of
sentences had been executed the star witness raised doubts against herself
by her endless implications, "for as matters were then likely to turn
out there was no guessing where or when there would be an end of
impeachments."[49] At length she named as cognizant of the plot several
persons "of known credit, fortune and reputations, and of religious
principles superior to a suspicion of being concerned in such detestable
practices; at which the judges were very much astonished."[50] This
farcical extreme at length persuaded even the obsessed magistrates to stop
the tragic proceedings.
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