.. as clearly as if he had pointed with his finger." [Footnote: _Short
Story_, Preface, Section 5.] Let posterity draw a veil over the shocking
scene.
Two or three days after her condemnation "the governor sent [her] a
warrant ... to depart ... she went by water to her farm at the Mount ...
and so to the island in the Narragansett Bay which her husband and the
rest of that sect had purchased of the Indians." [Footnote: Winthrop, i.
259.]
This pure and noble but most unhappy woman had sinned against the clergy,
past forgiveness here or hereafter. They gibbeted her as Jezebel, and her
name became a reproach in Massachusetts through two hundred years. But her
crimes and the awful ending of her life are best read in the Christian
words of the Rev. Thomas Welde, whose gentle spirit so adorned his holy
office.
"For the servants of God who came over into New England ... seeing their
ministery was a most precious sweete savour to all the saints before she
came hither, it is easie to discerne from what sinke that ill vapour hath
risen which hath made so many of her seduced party to loath now the smell
of those flowers which they were wont to find sweetnesse in. [Footnote:
_Short Story_, p. 40.] ... The Indians set upon them, and slew her and all
the family. [Footnote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her family were killed in a
general massacre of the Dutch and English by the Indians on Long Island.
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