The Plot to Kill Joshua Spooner

In a colonial America, when a woman was found to be an adulterous, whether it was true or not, she would be stripped down to her waist and publicly whipped. The fact that she's panicking tells me they weren't having sexual relations. So this is problematic. And they don't think there's any other way out except to kill Joshua Spooner. Ezra goes out and buys something called aqua fortus, which is a very old term for nitric acid.