On July 25, 1649, Adam Moffat, a resident of Humbie in Haddington, became formally entangled in the machinery of the Scottish judicial system regarding the crime of witchcraft. His name appears alongside twelve other individuals in a collective petition for a commission—the legal mechanism required to authorize a trial under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. This group apprehension suggests that Adam was part of a larger, localized purge of alleged practitioners, a common feature of the intense witch-hunting climate that swept through the Scottish Lowlands during the mid-seventeenth century.
On the same date that the commission was sought, a confession was recorded in Adam’s name. While the specific nature of his admissions remains unpreserved in the surviving archival fragments, the existence of this testimony marks the progression of his case through the judicial process. Beyond this documentation, the records for trial (T/JO/114) and the details of his background remain silent, leaving the precise circumstances of his accusation and the subsequent outcome of his proceedings to the shadows of history.