A short-lived and belated repetition of Protestant English paranoia about witches led to around 150 prosecutions and nineteen executions, and then in short order to the discrediting of the old ethos. A similar witchcraft case in Connecticut in the same year was dropped after widespread and powerfully expressed disquiet from clergy and laity alike, and indeed one of the judges in the Salem trials, Samuel Sewall, subsequently repented and five years later publicly asked fellow members of his Boston congregation for forgiveness for what he had done.
