Unnamed witches: a drowned witch. (Catalogue ref: ADM 106/313/424)
This is a regular piece of correspondence that was sent into the Navy Board, but it contains an unusual detail about what the neighbours of a woman suspected of witchcraft did to her, 14 August 1675.
Transcript
[On side of letter]
- This day a woman suspected for a witch was put a swimming
- by her neighbours for trial until they had drowned her
- a piece of such cruelty as I have rarely heard of
[On reverse of letter]
- Chatham 13 August 1675
- Survey—has seen the
- Order about allowing 6 pence
- a man a day who works at the
- Wrecks—complaining of the
- backwardness of their working
- –wants timber and plank for the
- wharfs—asks directions
- about buying Sir Charles Bickerstaff’s
- Timber—prays coming to
- a speedy resolution—
- Trying a woman for a Witch
- Drowned her