persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion
to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has
without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have
purely accidental associations been taken as convincing
proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames
on the asserted testimony of supernatural circumstances? I
will not say that there are no witches; but ever since the
difficulty of convicting them has been recognized in the
island, they all seem to have disappeared, as though the
evidence of the times gone by had been but an illusion. This
shows the instability of all things here below.

Coming down now to within a century ago, we find an article in the
_Gazette de Jersey_, of Saturday, March 10th, 1787, complaining of the
great increase of wizards and witches in the island, as well as of
their supposed victims. The writer says that the scenes then taking
place were truly ridiculous, and he details a case that had just
occurred at St. Brelade's as corroborative of his assertion. It
appears that a worthy householder there, had dreamed that a certain
wizard appeared to him and ordered him to poison himself at a date
which was specified, enjoining him above all things not to mention the
incident to anyone. The poor silly fellow was dreadfully distressed,
for he felt convinced that he would have to carry out the disagreeable
command. At the same time he was quite unable to keep so momentous a
secret to himself, and so he divulged the approaching tragedy to his
wife. The good woman's despair was fully equal to his own, and after
much anxious domestic counsel they determined to seek the good offices
of a White Witch (_une Quéraude_), with the hope that her incantations
might overcome the evil spells of the Black Witch who was causing all
the mischief. This White Witch prescribed lengthened fasting and other