The correct answer is “to inform the reader regarding the events of the witch trial”. Taken from the article “<em>A Witch Trial at Mount Holly</em>” by Benjamin Franklin (1730), the excerpt presented above narrates <u>a witch trial</u> held in Mount Holly in which two people had been accused, a man and a woman. In this excerpt, it is explained that the first test the accused had to undergo to prove their innocence was the test of the “<em>scales</em>”, in other words, they would be weighed compared to the Bible.