There was, and is, among the papers, a large body of evidence in her favor, most weighty and decisive, yet Mather makes no allusion to it whatever; although he must have known of it, from outside information as well as the documents before him. Two of the most respectable Ministers in the country, Phillips and Payson of Rowley, many of her neighbors, men and women, and the father of her husband, ninety-four years of age, testified to her eminent Christian graces, and portrayed a picture of female gentleness, loveliness, and purity, not surpassed in the annals of her sex. The two Clergymen exposed and denounced the wickedness of the means that had been employed to bring the stigma of witchcraft upon her good name. Mather not only withholds all this evidence, but speaks with special bitterness of this excellent woman, calling her, over and over again, throughout his whole account, "This How."
There is reason to apprehend that much cruelty was practised upon the Prisoners, especially to force them to confess. The statements made by John Proctor, in his letter to the Ministers, are fully entitled to credit, from his unimpeached honesty of character, as well as from the position of the persons addressed. It is not to be imagined, that, at its date, on the twenty-third of July, twelve days before his trial, he would have made, in writing, such declarations to them, had they not been true. He says that brutal violence was used upon his son to induce him to confess. He also states that two of the children of Martha Carrier were "tied neck and heels, till the blood was ready to come out of their noses." The outrages, thus perpetrated, with all the affrighting influences brought to bear, prevailed over Carrier's children. Some of them were used as witnesses against her. A little girl, not eight years old, was made to swear that she was a witch; that her mother, when she was six years old, made her so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, "in her spirit," to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the shape of "a black cat;" and that the cat told her it was her mother. Another of her children testified that he, and still another, a brother, were witches, and had been present, in spectre, at Witch-sacraments, telling who were there, and where they procured their wine. All this the mother had to hear.
Thomas Carrier, her husband, had, a year or two before, been involved in a controversy about the boundaries of his lands, in which hard words had passed. The energy of character, so strikingly displayed by his wife, at her Examination,rendered her liable to incur animosities, in the course of a neighborhood feud. The whole force of angry superstition had been arrayed against her; and she became the object of scandal, in the form it then was made to assume, the imputation of being a witch. Her Minister, Mr. Dane, in a strong and bold letter, in defence of his parishioners, many of whom had been accused, says: "There was a suspicion of Goodwife Carrier among some of us, before she was apprehended, I know." He avers that he had lived above forty years in Andover, and had been much conversant with the people, "at their habitations;" that, hearing that some of his people were inclined to indulge in superstitions stories, and give heed to tales of the kind, he preached a Sermon against all such things; and that, since that time, he knew of no person that countenanced practices of the kind; concluding his statement in these words: "So far as I had the understanding of any thing amongst us, do declare, that I believe the reports have been scandalous and unjust, neither will bear the light."
Atrocious as were the outrages connected with the prosecutions, in 1692, none, it appears to me, equalled those committed in the case of Martha Carrier. The Magistrates who sat and listened, with wondering awe, to such evidence from a little child against her mother, in the presence of that mother, must have been bereft, by the baleful superstitions of the hour, of all natural sensibility. They countenanced a violation of reason, common sense, and the instincts of humanity, too horrible to be thought of.
The unhappy mother felt it in the deep recesses of her strong nature. That trait, in the female and maternal heart, which, when developed, assumes a heroic aspect, was brought out in terrific power. She looked to the Magistrates, after the accusing girls had charged her with having "killed thirteen at Andover," with a stern bravery to which those dignitaries had not been accustomed, and rebuked them: "It is a shameful thing, that you should mind those folks that are out of their wits;" and then, turning to the accusers, said, "You lie, and I am wronged." This woman, like all the rest, met her fate with a demeanor that left no room for malice to utter a word of disparagement, protesting her innocence. Mather witnessed her execution; and in a memorandum to the report, written in the professed character of an historian, having great compassion for "surviving relatives," calls her a "rampant hag."
Bringing young children to swear away the life of their mother, was probably felt by the Judges to be too great a shock upon natural sensibilities to be risked again, and they were not produced at the trial; but Mather, notwithstanding, had no reluctance to publish the substance of their testimony, as what they would have sworn to if called upon; and says they were not put upon the stand, because there was evidence "enough" without them.
Such were the reports of those of the trials, which had then taken place, selected by Mather to be put into theWonders of the Invisible World, and thus to be "boxed about,"—to adopt the Reviewer's interpretation—to strike down the "Spectre of Sadduceeism," that is, to extirpate and bring to an end all doubts about witchcraft and all attempts to stop the prosecutions.
This book was written while the proceedings at Salem were at their height, during the very month in which sixteen persons had been sentenced to death and eight executed, evidently, from its whole tenor, and as the Reviewer admits, for the purpose of silencing objectors and doubters, Sadducees and Witch-advocates, before the meeting of the Court, by adjournment, in the first week of November, to continue—as the Ministers, in theirAdvice, expressed it—their "sedulous and assiduous endeavours to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country."
Little did those concerned, in keeping up the delusion and prolonging the scenes in the Salem Court-house and on Witch-hill, dream that the curtain was so soon to fall upon the horrid tragedy and confound him who combined, in his own person, the functions of Governor, Commander-in-chief, President of the Council, Legislative leader of the General Court, and Chief-justice of the Special Court, and all his aiders and abettors, lay and clerical.
In addition to the reports of the trials of the five "Malefactors," as Mather calls them, theWonders of the Invisible Worldcontains much matter that helps us to ascertain the real opinions, at the time, of its author, to which justice to him, and to all, requires me to risk attention. The passages, to be quoted, will occupy some room; but they will repay the reading, in the light they shed upon the manner in which such subjects were treated in the most accredited literature, and infused into the public mind, at that day. The style of Cotton Mather, while open to the criticisms generally made, is lively and attractive; and, for its ingenuity of expression and frequent felicity of illustration, often quite refreshing.
The work was written under a sense of the necessity of maintaining the position into which the Government of the Province had been led, byso suddenly and rashly organizing the Special Court and putting it upon its bloody work, at Salem; and this could only be done by renewing and fortifying the popular conviction, that such proceedings were necessary, and ought to be vigorously prosecuted, and all Sadduceeism, or opposition to them, put down. It was especially necessary to reconcile, or obscure into indistinctness, certain conflicting theories that had more or less currency. "I do not believe," says Mather, "that the progress of Witchcraft among us, is all the plot which the Devil is managing in the Witchcraft now upon us. It is judged that the Devil raised the storm, whereof we read in the eighth Chapter of Matthew, on purpose to overset the little vessel wherein the disciples of our Lord were embarked with him. And it may be feared that, in the Horrible Tempest which is now upon ourselves, the design of the Devil is to sink that happy Settlement of Government, wherewith Almighty God has graciously inclined their Majesties to favor us."—Wonders, p. 10.
He then proceeds to compliment Sir William Phips, alluding to his "continually venturing his all," that is, in looking after affairs and fighting Indians in the eastern parts; to applaud Stoughton as "admirably accomplished" for his place; and continues as follows: "Our Councellours are some of our most eminent persons, and as loyal to the Crown, as hearty lovers of their country. Our Constitution also is attended with singular privileges. All which things are by the Devil exceedingly envied unto us. And the Devil will doubtless take this occasion for the raising of such complaints and clamors, as may be of pernicious consequence unto some part of our present Settlement, if he can so far impose. But that, which most of all threatens us, in our present circumstances, is the misunderstandings, and so, the animosities, whereinto the Witchcraft, now raging, has enchanted us. The embroiling, first, of our Spirits, and then, of our affairs." "I am sure, we shall be worse than brutes, if we fly upon one another, at a time when the floods of Belial are upon us." "The Devil has made us like a troubled sea, and the mire and mud begins now also to heave up apace. Even good and wise men suffer themselves to fall into their paroxysms, and the shake which the Devil is now giving us, fetches up the dirt which before lay still at the bottom of our sinful hearts. If we allow the mad dogs of Hell to poison us by biting us, we shall imagine that we see nothing but such things about us, and like such things, fly upon all that we see."
After deprecating the animosities and clamors that were threatening to drive himself and his friends from power, he makes a strenuous appeal to persevere in the witchcraft prosecutions.
"We are to unite in our endeavours to deliver our distressed neighbors from the horrible annoyances and molestations wherewith a dreadful witchcraft is now persecuting of them. To have an hand in any thing that may stifle or obstruct a regular detection of that witchcraft, is what we may well with an holy fear avoid. Their Majesties good subjects must not every day be torn to pieces by horrid witches, and those bloody felons be left wholly unprosecuted. The witchcraft is a business that will not be shammed, without plunging us into sore plagues, and of long continuance. But then we are to unite in such methods for this deliverance, as may be unquestionably safe, lest the latter end be worse than the beginning. And here, what shall I say? I will venture to say thus much. That we are safe, when we make just as much use of all advice from the invisible world, as God sends it for. It is a safe principle, that when God Almighty permits any spirits, from the unseen regions, to visit us with surprising informations, there is then something to be enquired after; we are then to enquire of one another, what cause there is for such things? The peculiar government of God, over the unbodied Intelligences, is a sufficient foundation for this principle. When there has been a murder committed, an apparition of the slain party accusing of any man, although such apparitions have oftener spoke true than false, is not enough to convict the man as guilty of that murder; but yet it is a sufficient occasion for Magistrates to make a particular enquiry whether such a man have afforded any ground for such an accusation."—Page 13.
He goes on to apply this principle to the spectres of accused persons, seen by the "afflicted," as constituting sufficient ground to institute proceedings against the persons thus accused. After modifying, apparently, this position, although in language so obscure as to leave his meaning quite uncertain, he says: "I was going to make one venture more; that is, to offer some safe rules, for the finding out of the witches, which are to this day our accursed troublers: but this were a venture too presumptuous and Icarian for me to make. I leave that unto those Excellent and Judicious persons with whom I am not worthy to be numbered: All that I shall do, shall be to lay before my readers, a brief synopsis of what has been written on that subject, by a Triumvirate of as eminent persons as have ever handled it."—Page 14.
From neither of them, Perkins, Gaule and Bernard, as he cites them, can specific authority be obtained for the admission of spectral testimony, as offered by accusing witnesses, not themselves confessing witches. The third Rule, attributedto Perkins, and the fifth of Bernard, apply to persons confessing the crime of witchcraft, and, after confession, giving evidence affecting another person—the former considering such evidence "not sufficient for condemnation, but a fit presumption to cause a strait examination;" the latter treating it as sufficient to convict a fellow witch, that is, another person also accused of being in "league with the Devil." Bernard specifies, as the kind of evidence, sufficient for conviction, such witnesses might give: "If they can make good the truth of their witness and give sufficient proof of it; as that they have seen them with their Spirits, or that they have received Spirits from them, or that they can tell when they used witchery-tricks to do harm, or that they told them what harm they had done, or that they can show the mark upon them, or that they have been together in those meetings, or such like."
Mather remarks, in connection with his synopsis of these Rules: "They are considerable things, which I have thus related." Those I have particularly noticed were enough to let in a large part of the evidence given at the Salem trials—in many respects, the most effective and formidable part—striking the Jury and Court, as well as the people, with an "awe," which rendered no other evidence necessary to overwhelm the mind and secure conviction. The Prisoners themselves were amazed and astounded by it. Mr. Hale, in his account of the proceedings, says: "When George Burroughs was tried, seven or eight of the confessors, severally called, said, they knew the said Burroughs; and saw him at a Witch-meeting at the Village; and heard him exhort the company to pull down the Kingdom of God and set up the Kingdom of the Devil. He denied all, yet said he justified the Judges and Jury in condemning him; because there were so many positive witnesses against him; but said he died by false witnesses." Mr. Hale proceeds to mention this fact: "I seriously spake to one that witnessed (of his exhorting at the Witch-meeting at the Village) saying to her; 'You are one that bring this man to death: if you have charged any thing upon him that is not true, recall it before it be too late, while he is alive.' She answered me, she had nothing to charge herself with, upon that account."
Mather omits this circumstance in copying Mr. Hale's narrative. It has always been a mystery, what led the "accusing girls" to cry out, as they afterwards did, against Mr. Hale's wife. Perhaps this expostulation with one of their witnesses, awakened their suspicions. They always struck at every one who appeared to be wavering, or in the least disposed to question the correctness of what was going on. The statement of Mr. Hale shows how effectual and destructive the evidence, authorized by Bernard's book, was; and it also proves how unjust, to the Judges and Magistrates, is the charge made upon them by the Reviewer, that they disregarded and violated the advice of the Ministers. In admitting a species of evidence, wholly spectral, which was fatal, more than any other, to the Prisoners, they followed a rule laid down by the very authors whose "directions" the Ministers, in theirAdvice, written by "Mr. Mather the younger," enjoined upon them to follow. It is noticeable, by the way, that, in that document, they left Gaule out of the "triumvirate;" Mather finding nothing in his book to justify the admission of spectral testimony.
He urges the force of the evidence, from confessions, with all possible earnestness.
"One would think all the rules of understanding human affairs are at an end, if after so many most voluntary harmonious confessions, made by intelligent persons, of all ages, in sundry towns, at several times, we must not believe the main strokes, wherein those confessions all agree."—Page 8.
He continues to press the point thus: "If the Devils now can strike the minds of men with any poisons of so fine a composition and operation, that scores of innocent people shall unite, in confessions of a crime, which we see actually committed, it is a thing prodigious, beyond the wonders of the former ages; and it threatens no less than a sort of a dissolution upon the world. Now, by these confessions, it is agreed, that the Devil has made a dreadful knot of witches in the country, and by the help of witches has dreadfully increased that knot; that these witches have driven a trade of commissioning their confederate spirits, to do all sorts of mischiefs to the neighbors, whereupon there have ensued such mischievous consequences upon the bodies and estates of the neighborhood, as could not otherwise be accounted for; yea, that at prodigious Witch-meetings the wretches have proceeded so far as to concert and consult the methods of rooting out the Christian religion from this country, and setting up, instead of it, perhaps a more gross Diabolism, than ever the world saw before. And yet it will be a thing little short of miracle, if, in so spread a business as this, the Devil should not get in some of his juggles, to confound the discovery of all the rest."
In the last sentence of the foregoing passage, we see an idea, which Mather expressed in several instances. It amounts to this. Suppose the Devil does "sometimes" make use of the spectre of an innocent person—he does it for the purpose of destroying our faith in that kind of evidence, and leading us to throw it all out, thereby "confounding the discovery" of those cases inwhich, as ordinarily, he makes use of the spectres of his guilty confederates, and, in effect, sheltering "all the rest," that is, the whole body of those who are the willing and covenanted subjects of his diabolical kingdom, from detection. He says: "The witches have not only intimated, but some of them acknowledged, that they have plotted the representations of innocent persons to cover and shelter themselves in their witchcrafts."
He further suggests—for no other purpose, it would seem, than to reconcile us to the use of such evidence, even though, it may, in "rare and extraordinary" instances, bear against innocent persons, scarcely, however, to be apprehended, "when matters come before civil judicature"—that it may be the divine will, that, occasionally, an innocent personmay be cut off: "Who of us can exactly state how far our God may, for our chastisement, permit the Devil to proceed in such an abuse?" He then alludes to the meeting of Ministers, under his father's auspices, at Cambridge, on the first of August; quotes with approval, the result of his "Discourse," then held; and immediately proceeds: "It is rare and extraordinary, for an honest Naboth to have his life itself sworn away by two children of Belial, and yet no infringement hereby made on the Rectoral Righteousness of our eternal Sovereign, whose judgments are a great deep, and who gives none account of his matters."—Page 9.
The amount of all this is, that it is so rare and extraordinary for the Devil to assume the spectral shape of an innocent person, that it is best, "when," as his expression is, in another place, "the public safety makes an exigency," to receive and act upon such evidence, even if it should lead to the conviction of an innocent person—a thing so seldom liable to occur, and, indeed, barely possible. The procedure would be but carrying out the divine "permission," and a fulfilment of "the Rectoral Righteousness" of Him, whose councils are a great deep, not to be accounted for to, or by, us.
In summing up what the witches had been doing at Salem Village, during the preceding Summer, Mather says: "The Devil, exhibiting himself ordinarily as a small black man, has decoyed a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures to list themselves in his horrid service by entering their names in a book, by him tendered unto them." "That they, each of them, have, their spectres or Devils, commissioned by them, and representing them, to be the engines of their malice." He enumerates, as facts, all the statements of the "afflicted" witnesses and confessing witches, as to the horrible and monstrous things perpetrated by the spectres of the accused parties; and he applauds the Court, testifying to the successful and beneficial issue of its proceedings. "Our honorable Judges have used, as Judges have heretofore done, the spectral evidence, to introduce their further enquiries into the lives of the persons accused; and they have, thereupon, by the wonderful Providence of God, been so strengthened with other evidences, that some of the Witch-gang have been fairly executed."—Pages 41, 43.
The language of Cotton Mather, as applied to those who had suffered, as witches, "a fearful knot of proud, froward, ignorant, envious and malicious creatures—a Witch-gang,"—is rather hard, as coming from a Minister who, as the Reviewer asserts, had officiated in their death scenes, witnessed their devout and Christian expressions and deportment, and been their comforter, consoler, counsellor and friend.
The dissatisfaction that pervaded the public mind, about the time of the last executions at Salem, which Phips describes, was so serious, that both the Mathers were called in to allay it. The father also, at the request of the Ministers, wrote a book, entitled,Cases of Conscience, concerning Evil Spirits, personating men, Witchcrafts, &c., the general drift of which is against spectral evidence. He says: "Spectres are Devils, in the shape of persons, either living or dead." Speaking of bewitched persons, he says: "What they affirm, concerning others, is not to be taken for evidence. Whence had they this supernatural sight? It must needs be either from Heaven or from Hell. If from Heaven (as Elisha's servant and Balaam's ass could discern Angels) let their testimony be received. But if they had this knowledge from Hell, though there may possibly be truth in what they affirm, they are not legal witnesses: for the Law of God allows of no revelation from any other Spirit but himself.Isa., viii., 19. It is a sin against God, to make use of the Devil's help to know that which cannot be otherwise known; and I testify against it, as a great transgression, which may justly provoke the Holy One of Israel, to let loose Devils on the whole land.Luke, iv., 38."
After referring to a couple of writers on the subject, the very next sentence is this: "Although the Devil's accusations may be so far regarded as to cause an enquiry into the truth of things,Job, i., 11, 12, and ii., 5, 6; yet not so as to be an evidence or ground of conviction."
It appears therefore, that Increase Mather, while writing with much force and apparent vehemence against spectral evidence, still in reality countenanced its introduction, as a basis of "enquiry into the truth of things," preliminary to other evidence. This was, after all, to use theform of thought of these writers, letting the Devil into the case; and that was enough, from the nature of things, in the then state of wild superstition and the blind delusions of the popular mind, to give to spectral evidence the controlling sway it had in the Salem trials, and would necessarily have, every where, when introduced at all.
In a Postscript toCases of Conscience, Increase Mather says that he hears that "some have taken up a notion," that there was something contradictory between his views and those of his son, set forth in theWonders of the Invisible World. "Tis strange that such imaginations should enter into the minds of men." He goes on to say he had read and approved of his son's book, before it was printed; and falls back, as both of them always did, when pressed, upon theAdviceof the Ministers, of the fifteenth of June, in which, he says, they concurred.
There can be no manner of doubt that the "strange" opinion did prevail, at the time, and has ever since, that the father and son did entertain very different sentiments about the Salem proceedings. The precise form of that difference is not easily ascertained. The feelings, so natural and proper, on both sides, belonging to the relation they sustained to each other, led them to preserve an appearance of harmony, especially in whatever was committed to the press. Then, again, the views they each entertained were in themselves so inconsistent, that it was not difficult to persuade themselves that they were substantially similar. There was much in the father, for the son to revere: there was much in the son, for the father to admire. Besides, the habitual style in which they and the Ministers of that day indulged, of saying and unsaying, on the same page—putting a proposition and then linking to it a countervailing one—covered their tracks to each other and to themselves. This is their apology; and none of them needs it more than Cotton Mather. He was singularly blind to logical sequence. With wonderful power over language, he often seems not to appreciate the import of what he is saying; and to this defect, it is agreeable to think, much, if not all, that has the aspect of a want of fairness and even truthfulness, in his writings may be attributed.
As associate Ministers of the same congregation, it was desirable for the Mathers to avoid being drawn into a conflicting attitude, on any matter of importance. Drake, however, in hisHistory of Boston, (p. 545) says that there was supposed, at the formation of the New North Church, in that place, in 1712, to have been a jealousy between them. There were, indeed, many points of dissimilarity, as well as of similarity, in their culture, experience, manners, and ways; and men conversant with them, at the time, may have noticed a difference in their judgments and expressions, relating to the witchcraft affair, of which no knowledge has come to us, except the fact, that it was so understood at the time.
Cotton Mather brought all his ability to bear in preparing theWonders of the Invisible World. It is marked throughout by his peculiar genius, and constructed with great ingenuity and elaboration; but it was "water spilt on the ground." So far as the end, for which it was designed, is regarded, it died before it saw the light.
When Sir William Phips went to the eastward, it was expected that his absence would be prolonged to the twelfth of October. We cannot tell exactly when he returned; probably some days before the twelfth. Writing on the fourteenth, he says, that before any application was made to him for the purpose, he had put a stop to the proceedings of the Court. He probably signified, informally, to the Judges, that they must not meet on the day to which they had adjourned. Brattle, writing on the eighth, had not heard any thing of the kind. But the Rev. Samuel Torrey of Weymouth, who was in full sympathy with the prosecutors, had heard of it on the seventh, as appears by this entry in Sewall's Diary: "Oct.7th, 1692. Mr. Torrey seems to be of opinion, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer should go on, regulating any thing that may have been amiss, when certainly found to be so."
Sewall and Stoughton were among the principal friends of Torrey; and he, probably, had learned from them, Phips's avowed purpose to stop the proceedings of the Court, in the witchcraft matter. The Court, however, was allowed to sit, in other cases, as it held a trial in Boston, on the tenth, in a capital case of the ordinary kind. The purpose of the Governor gradually became known. Danforth, in a conversation with Sewall, at Cambridge, on the fifteenth, expressed the opinion that the witchcraft trials ought not to proceed any further.
It is not unlikely that Phips, while at the eastward, had received some communication that hastened his return. He describes the condition of things, as he found it. We know that the lives of twenty people had been taken away, one of them a Minister of the Gospel. Two Ministers had been accused, one of them the Pastor of the Old South Church; the name of the other is not known. A hundred were in prison; about two hundred more were under accusation, including some men of great estates in Boston, the mother-in-law of one of the Judges, Corwin, and a member of the family of Increase Mather, although, ashe says, in no way related to him. A Magistrate, who was a member of the House of Assembly, had fled for his life; and Phips's trusted naval commander, a man of high standing in the Church and in society, as well as in the service, after having been committed to Jail, had escaped to parts unknown. More than all, the Governor's wife had been cried out upon. We can easily imagine his state of mind. Sir William Phips was noted for the sudden violence of his temper. Mather says that he sometimes "showed choler enough." Hutchinson says that "he was of a benevolent, friendly disposition; at the same time quick and passionate;" and, in illustration of the latter qualities, he relates that he got into a fisticuff fight with the Collector of the Port, on the wharf, handling him severely; and that, having high words, in the street, with a Captain of the Royal Navy, "the Governor made use of his cane and broke Short's head." When his Lady told her story to him, and pictured the whole scene of the "strange ferment" in the domestic and social circles of Boston and throughout the country, it was well for the Chief-justice, the Judges, and perhaps his own Ministers, that they were not within the reach of those "blows," with which, as Mather informs us, in theLife of Phips, the rough sailor was wont, when the gusts of passion were prevailing, to "chastise incivilities," without reference to time or place, rank or station.
But, as was his wont, the storm of wrath soon subsided; his purpose, however, under the circumstances, as brave as it was wise and just, was, as the result showed, unalterable. He communicated to the Judges, personally, that they must sit no more, at Salem or elsewhere, to try cases of witchcraft; and that no more arrests must be made, on that charge.
Mather's book, all ready as it was for the press, thus became labor thrown away. It was not only rendered useless for the purpose designed, but a most serious difficulty obstructed its publication. Phips forbade the "printing of any discourses, one way or another;" and theWondershad incorporated in it some Sermons, impregnated, through and through, with combustible matter, in Phips's view, likely to kindle an inextinguishable flame.
All that could be done was to keep still, in the hope that he would become more malleable. In the meanwhile, public business called him away, perhaps to Rhode Island or Connecticut, from the eighteenth to the twenty-seventh of October. In his absence, whether in consequence of movements he had put in train, or solely from what had become known of his views, the circumstance occurred which is thus related in Sewall's Diary—the Legislature was then in Session: "Oct.26, 1692. A Bill is sent in about calling a Fast and Convocation of Ministers, that may be led in the right way, as to the Witchcrafts. The season, and manner of doing it, is such, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves thereby dismissed. 29 nos & 33 yeas to the Bill. Capt. Bradstreet, and Lieut. True, Wm. Hutchins, and several other interested persons, in the affirmative."
The course of Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, and the action in the Legislature of the persons here named, entitle the Merrimac towns of Essex-county to the credit of having made the first public and effectual resistance to the fanaticism and persecutions of 1692.
The passage of this Bill, in the House of Representatives, shows how the public mind had been changed, since the June Session. Dudley Bradstreet was a Magistrate and member from Andover, son of the old Governor, and, with his wife, had found safety from prosecution by flight; Henry True, a member from Salisbury, was son-in-law of Mary Bradbury, who had been condemned to death; Samuel Hutchins, (inadvertently called "Wm.," by Sewall) was a member from Haverhill, and connected by marriage with a family, three of whom were tried for their lives. Sewall says there were "several other" members of the House, interested in like manner. This shows into what high circles the accusers had struck.
It appears, by the same Diary, that on the twenty-seventh, Cotton Mather preached the Thursday Lecture, fromJames, i., 4. The day of trial was then upon him and his fellow-actors; and patience was inculcated as the duty of the hour.
The Diary relates that at a meeting of the Council, on the twenty-eighth, in the afternoon, Sewall, "desired to have the advice of the Governor and Council, as to the sitting of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, next week; said, should move it no more; great silence prevailed, as if should say, Do not go."
The entry does not state whether Phips was present; as, however, the time fixed for his recent brief absence had expired, probably he was in his seat. The following mishap, described by Sewall, as occurring that day, perhaps detained the Deputy-governor: "Oct.28. Lt. Govr, coming over the causey, is, by reason of the high tide, so wet, that is fain to go to bed, till sends for dry clothes to Dorchester."
The "great silence" was significant of the embarrassment in which they were placed, and their awe of the "choler" of the Governor.
The Diary gives the following account of the Session the next day, at which, (as Sewall informs us,) the Lieutenant-governor was not present: "Oct.29. Mr. Russel asked, whether the Court of Oyer and Terminer should sit, expressing some fear of inconvenience by its fall. Governor said, it must fall."
Thus died the Court of Oyer and Terminer. Its friends cherished, to the last, the hope that Sir William might be placated, and possibly again brought under control; but it vanished, when the emphatic and resolute words, reported by Sewall, were uttered.
The firmness and force of character of the Governor are worthy of all praise. Indeed, the illiterate and impulsive sailor has placed himself, in history, far in front of all the honored Judges and learned Divines, of his day. Not one of them penetrated the whole matter as he did, when his attention was fully turned to it, and his feelings enlisted, to decide, courageously and righteously, the question before him. He saw that no life was safe while the evidence of the "afflicted persons" was received, "either to the committing or trying" of any persons. He thus broke through the meshes which had bound Judges and Ministers, the writers of books and the makers of laws; and swept the whole fabric of "spectral testimony" away, whether as matter of "enquiry" and "presumption," or of "conviction." The ship-carpenter of the Kennebec laid the axe to the root of the tree.
The following extract from a letter of Sir William Phips, just put into my hands, and for which I am indebted to Mr. Goodell, substantiates the conclusions to which I have been led.
"Governor Phips to the Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations, 3 April, 1693."May it please your Lordships:"I have intreated MrBlathwayte to lay before your Lordships several letters, wherein I have given a particular account of my stopping a supposed witchcraft, which had proved fatall to many of their Majtiesgood subjects, had there not been a speedy end putt thereto; for a stop putt to the proceedings against such as were accused, hath caused the thing itself to cease."
"Governor Phips to the Lords of the Committee of Trade and Plantations, 3 April, 1693.
"May it please your Lordships:
"I have intreated MrBlathwayte to lay before your Lordships several letters, wherein I have given a particular account of my stopping a supposed witchcraft, which had proved fatall to many of their Majtiesgood subjects, had there not been a speedy end putt thereto; for a stop putt to the proceedings against such as were accused, hath caused the thing itself to cease."
This shows that, addressing officially his Home Government, he assumed the responsibility of having "stopped and put a speedy end to the proceedings;" that he had no great faith in the doctrines then received touching the reality of witchcraft; and that he was fully convinced that, if he had allowed the trials to go on, and the inflammation of the public mind to be kept up by "discourses," the bloody tragedy would have been prolonged, and "proved fatal to many good" people.
There are two men—neither of them belonging to the class of scholars or Divines; both of them guided by common sense, good feeling, and a courageous and resolute spirit—who stand alone, in the scenes of the witchcraft delusions.Nathaniel Saltonstall, who left the Council and the Court, the day the Ministers'Advice, to go on with the prosecutions, was received, and never appeared again until thatAdvicewas abandoned and repudiated; and SirWilliam Phips, who stamped it out beneath his feet.
But how with Cotton Mather's Book, theWonders of the Invisible World? On the eleventh of October, Stoughton and Sewall signed a paper, printed in the book, [p. 88] endorsing its contents, especially as to "matters of fact and evidence" and the "methods of conviction used in the proceedings of the Court at Salem." The certificate repeats the form of words, so often used in connection with the book, that it was written "at the direction of His Excellency the Governor," without, as in all cases, specifying who, whether Phips or Stoughton, was the Governor referred to. As all the Judges were near at hand, and as the certificate related to the proceedings before them, it is quite observable that only the two mentioned signed it. As they were present, in the private conference, with Cotton Mather, at the house of one of them, on the twenty-second of September, when its preparation for publication was finally arranged, they could not well avoid signing it. The times were critical; and the rest of the Judges, knowing the Governor's feelings, thought best not to appear. Of the three other persons, at that conference, Hathorne, it is true, was a Judge of that Court, but it is doubtful whether he often, or ever, took his seat as such; besides, he was too experienced and cautious a public man, unnecessarily to put his hand to such a paper, when it was known, as it was probably to him, that Sir William Phips had forbidden publications of the kind.
There is another curious document, in theWonders—a letter from Stoughton to Mather, highly applauding the book, in which he acknowledges his particular obligations to him for writing it, as "more nearly and highly concerned" than others, considering his place in the Court, expressing in detail his sense of the great value of the work, "at this juncture of time," and concluding thus: "I do therefore make it my particular and earnest Request unto you, that, as soon as may be, you will commit the same unto the press, accordingly." It is signed, without any official title of distinction, simply "William Stoughton," and iswithout date.
It is singular, if Phips was the person who requested it to be written and was the "Excellency" who authorized its publication, that it was left to William Stoughton to "request" its being put to press.
The foregoing examination of dates and facts seems, almost, to compel the conclusion, to be drawn also from his letter, that Sir William Phips really had nothing whatever to do with procuring the preparation or sanctioning the publication of theWonders of the Invisible World.The same is true as to the request to the Ministers, for theirAdvice, dated the fifteenth of June. It was "laid before the Judges;" and was, undoubtedly, a response to an application from them. Having, very improperly, it must be confessed, given the whole matter of the trials over to Stoughton, and being engrossed in other affairs, it is quite likely that he knew but little of what had been going on, until his return from the eastward, in October. And his frequent and long absences, leaving Stoughton, so much of the time, with all the functions and titles of Governor devolved upon him, led to speaking of the latter as "His Excellency." When bearing this title and acting as Governor, for the time being, the Chief-justice, with the side Judges—all of them members of the Council, and in number meeting the requirement in the Charter for a quorum, seven—may have been considered, as substantially, "The Governor and Council."
Thinking it more than probable that, in this way, great wrong has been done to the memory of an honest and noble-hearted man, I have endeavored to set things in their true light. The perplexities, party entanglements, personal collisions, and engrossing cares that absorbed the attention of Sir William Phips, during the brief remainder of his life, and the little interest he felt in such things, prevented his noticing the false position in which he had been placed by the undistinguishing use of titular phrases.
Judge Sewall's Diary contains an entry that, also, sheds light upon the position of the Mathers. It will be borne in mind, that Elisha Cook was the colleague of Increase Mather, as Colonial Agents in London. Cook refused assent to the new Charter, and became the leader of the anti-Mather party. He was considered an opponent of the witchcraft prosecutions, although out of the country at the time. "Tuesday, Nov.15, 1692. MrCook keeps a Day of Thanksgiving for his safe arrival." * * * [Many mentioned as there, among them Mr. Willard.] "Mr. Allen preached from Jacob's going to Bethel, * * * Mr. Mather not there, nor Mr. Cotton Mather. The good Lord unite us in his fear, and remove our animosities."
The manner in which Sewall distinguished the two Mathers confirms the views presented on pages 37, 38.
It may be remarked, that, up to this time, Sewall seems to have been in full sympathy with Stoughton and Mather. He was, however, beginning to indulge in conversations that indicate a desire to feel the ground he was treading. After a while, he became thoroughly convinced of his error; and there are scattered, in the margins of his Diary, expressions of much sensibility at the extent to which he had been misled. Over against an entry, giving an account of his presence at an Examination before Magistrates, of whom he was one, on the eleventh of April, 1692, at Salem, is the interjection, thrice repeated, "Vae, Vae, Vae." At the opening of the year 1692, he inserted, at a subsequent period, this passage: "Attonitus tamen est, ingens discrimine parvo committi potuisse Nefas."[4]
FOOTNOTES:[4]For the privilege of inspecting and using Judge Sewall's Diary I am indebted to the kindness of the Massachusetts Historical Society: and I would also express my thanks, for similar favors and civilities, to the officers in charge of the Records and Archives in the Massachusetts State House, the Librarian of Harvard University, the Essex Institute, and many individuals, not mentioned in the text, especially those devoted collectors and lovers of our old New England literature, Samuel G. Drake and John K. Wiggin.
[4]For the privilege of inspecting and using Judge Sewall's Diary I am indebted to the kindness of the Massachusetts Historical Society: and I would also express my thanks, for similar favors and civilities, to the officers in charge of the Records and Archives in the Massachusetts State House, the Librarian of Harvard University, the Essex Institute, and many individuals, not mentioned in the text, especially those devoted collectors and lovers of our old New England literature, Samuel G. Drake and John K. Wiggin.
[4]For the privilege of inspecting and using Judge Sewall's Diary I am indebted to the kindness of the Massachusetts Historical Society: and I would also express my thanks, for similar favors and civilities, to the officers in charge of the Records and Archives in the Massachusetts State House, the Librarian of Harvard University, the Essex Institute, and many individuals, not mentioned in the text, especially those devoted collectors and lovers of our old New England literature, Samuel G. Drake and John K. Wiggin.
I propose, now, to enquire into the position Cotton Mather occupied, and the views he expressed, touching the matter, after the witchcraft prosecutions had ceased and the delusion been dispelled from the minds of other men.
During the Winter of 1692 and 1693, between one and two hundred prisoners, including confessing witches, remained in Jail, at Salem, Ipswich, and other places. A considerable number were in the Boston Jail. It seems, from the letter to Secretary Allyn of Connecticut, that, during that time, the Mathers were in communication with them, and receiving from them the names of persons whose spectres, they declared, they had seen and suffered from, as employed in the Devil's work. After all that had happened, and the order of Sir William Phips, forbidding attempts to renew the excitement, it is wonderful that the Mathers should continue such practices. In the latter part of the Summer of 1693, they were both concerned in the affair of Margaret Rule; and Cotton Mather prepared, and put into circulation, an elaborate account of it, some extracts from which have been presented, and which will be further noticed, in another connection.
His next work, in the order of time, which I shall consider, is hisLife of Sir William Phips, printed in London, in 1697, and afterwards included in theMagnalia, also published in London, a few years afterwards, constituting the last part of the Second Book.The Life of Phipsis, perhaps, the most elaborate and finished of all Mather's productions; and "adorned," as his uncle Nathaniel Mather says, in a commendatory note, "with a very grateful variety of learning." In it, Sir William, who had died, at London, three years before, is painted in glowing colors, as one of the greatest of conquerors and rulers, "dropped, as it were, from the Machine of Heaven;" "for his exterior, he was one tall, beyond the common lot of men; and thick, as well as tall,and strong as well as thick. He was, in all respects, exceedingly robust, and able to conquer such difficulties of diet and of travel, as would have killed most men alive;" "he was well set, and he was therewithall of a very comely, though a very manly, countenance." He is described as of "a most incomparable generosity," "of a forgiving spirit." His faults are tenderly touched; "upon certain affronts, he has made sudden returns, that have shewed choler enough; and he has, by blow, as well as by word, chastised incivilities."
It is remarkable that Mather should have laid himself out, to such an extent of preparation and to such heights of eulogy, as this work exhibits. It is dedicated to the Earl of Bellamont, just about to come over, as Phips's successor. Mather held in his hand a talisman of favor, influence, and power. In the Elegy which concludes theLife, are lines like these: