“I underwritten, being appointed by authority to take this examination, do testify upon oath, taken in court, that this is a true copy of the substance of it, to the best of my knowledge, 5th Jan. 1692-3. The within Mary Osgood was examined before their Majesties’ justices of peace in Salem.Attest. John Higginson, Just. Peace.”Owned before the Grand Jury 5 Jan. 1692-3. Robert Payne, Foreman.”
“I underwritten, being appointed by authority to take this examination, do testify upon oath, taken in court, that this is a true copy of the substance of it, to the best of my knowledge, 5th Jan. 1692-3. The within Mary Osgood was examined before their Majesties’ justices of peace in Salem.
Attest. John Higginson, Just. Peace.”
Owned before the Grand Jury 5 Jan. 1692-3. Robert Payne, Foreman.”
Mr. Hale, who had the character of an impartial relator, acknowledges that the confessors generally went off from their confessions; some saying “they remembered nothing of what they had said,” others said “they had belied themselves,” and yet he thinks, if the times had been calm, the condition of the confessors might have called for amelius inquirendum; and seems to think remarkable daughters and granddaughters confirming their mother’s and grandmothers’ confession, and instances in the case of Goody Foster, her daughter Mary Lacey, and granddaughter Mary Lacey, jun. Their confessions happen to be preserved, and a few extracts from them will show there was no need of further inquiries.[54]
21st July, ’92. Before Major Gedney, Mr. Hathorne, Mr. Corwin and Capt. Higginson.
Goody Foster, you remember we have three times spoken with you, and do you now remember what you then confessed to us? Her former confession was read, which she owned to be all true.
You have been engaged in very great wickedness, and some have been left to hardness of heart to deny; but it seems that God will give you more favor than others, inasmuch as you relent. But your daughter here hath confessed some things that you did not tell us of. Your daughter was with you and Goody Carrier, when you did ride upon the stick. A. I did not know it. Q. How long have you known your daughter to be engaged? A. I cannot tell, nor have I any knowledge of it at all. Q. Did you see your daughter at the meeting? A. No. Q. Did not you know your daughter to be a witch? A. No. Q. Your daughter said she was at the witches meeting, and that you yourself stood at a distance off and did not partake at that meeting; and you yourself said so also; give us a relation from the beginning until now. A. I know none of their names that were there, but only Goody Carrier. Q. Would you know their faces if you saw them? A. I cannot tell. Q. Were there not two companies in the field at the same time? A. I remember no more.
Mary Warren, one of the afflicted, said that Goody Carrier’s shape told her, that this Goody Foster had made her daughter a witch. Q. Do not you acknowledge that you did so about thirteen years ago? A. No, and I know no more of my daughter’s being a witch than what day I shall die upon. Q. Are you willing your daughter should make a full and free confession? A. Yes. Q. Are you willing to do so too? A. Yes. Q. You cannot expect peace of conscience without a free confession. A. If I knew any thing more, I would speak it to the utmost. Goody Lacey, the daughter, called in, began thus; Oh, mother! how do you do? We have left Christ, and the Devil hath gat hold of us. How shall I get rid of this evil one? I desire God to break my rocky heart that I may get the victory this time. Q. Goody Foster, you cannot get rid of this snare, your heart and mouth is not open. A. I did not see the Devil, I was praying to the Lord. Q. What Lord? A. To God. Q. What God do witches pray to? A. I cannot tell, the Lord help me. Q. Goody Lacey, had you no discourse with your mother in your riding? A. No, I think I had not a word. Q. Who rid foremost on that stick to the village? A. I suppose my mother. Goody Foster said that Goody Carrier was foremost. Q. Goody Lacey, how many years ago since they were baptized? A. Three or four years ago, I suppose. Q. Who baptized them? A. The old serpent. Q. How did he do it? A. He dipped their heads in the water, saying they were his, and that he had power over them. Q. Where was this? A. At Fall’s river. Q. How many were baptized that day? A. Some of the chief; I think there were six baptized. Q. Name them. A. I think they were of the higher powers. These were then removed.
Mary Lacey, the granddaughter, was brought in, and Mary Warren in a violent fit. Q. How dare you come in here, and bring the Devil with you, to afflict these poor creatures? A. I know nothing of it. Lacey laying her hand on Warren’s arm; she recovered from her fit. Q. You arehere accused for practising witchcraft upon Goody Ballard; which way do you do it? A. I cannot tell. Where is my mother that made me a witch, and I knew it not? Q. Can you look upon that maid, Mary Warren, and not hurt her? Look upon her in a friendly way. She trying so to do, struck her down with her eyes. Q. Do you acknowledge now you are a witch? A. Yes. Q. How long have you been a witch? A. Not above a week. Q. Did the Devil appear to you? A. Yes. Q. In what shape? A. In the shape of a horse. Q. What did he say to you? A. He bid me not to be afraid of any thing, and he would not bring me out; but he has proved a liar from the beginning. Q. When was this? A. I know not; above a week. Q. Did you set your hand to the book? A. No. Q. Did he bid you worship him? A. Yes; he bid me also afflict persons. You are now in the way to obtain mercy if you will confess and repent. She said, The Lord help me. Q. Do not you desire to be saved by Christ? A. Yes. Then you must confess freely what you know in this matter. She then proceeded. I was in bed, and the Devil came to me, and bid me obey him and I should want for nothing, and he would not bring me out. Q. But how long ago? A. A little more than a year. Q. Was that the first time? A. Yes. Q. How long was you gone from your father, when you run away? A. Two days. Q. Where had you your food? A. At John Stone’s. Q. Did the Devil appear to you then, when you was abroad? A. No, but he put such thoughts in my mind as not to obey my parents. Q. Who did the Devil bid you afflict? A. Timothy Swan. Richard Carrier comes often a-nights and has me to afflict persons. Q. Where do ye go? A. To Goody Ballard’s sometimes. Q. How many of you were there at a time? A. Richard Carrier and his mother, and my mother and grandmother. Upon reading over the confession so far, Goody Lacey, the mother, owned this last particular. Q. How many more witches are there in Andover? A. I know no more, but Richard Carrier.
Tell all the truth. A. I cannot yet. Q. Did you use at any time to ride upon a stick or pole? A. Yes. Q. How high? A. Sometimes above the trees. Q. Your mother struck down these afflicted persons, and she confessed so far, till at last she could shake hands with them freely and do them no hurt. Be you also free and tell the truth. What sort of worship did you do the Devil? A. He bid me pray to him and serve him and said he was a god and lord to me. Q. What meetings have you been at, at the village? A. I was once there and Richard Carrier rode with me on a pole, and the Devil carried us. Q. Did not some speak to you to afflict the people there? A. Yes, the Devil. Q. Was there not a man also among you there? A. None but the Devil. Q. What shape was the Devil in then? A. He was a black man, and had a high crowned hat. Q. Your mother and your grandmother say there was a minister there. How many men did you see there? A. I saw none but Richard Carrier. Q. Did you see none else? A. There was a minister there, and I think he is now in prison. Q. Were there nottwo[55]ministers there? A. Cannot tell. Q. Was there not one Mr. Burroughs there? A. Yes.
The examination contains many pages more of the same sort of proceedings which I am tired of transcribing. Mr. Hale mentions also the case of Richard Carrier, who was a lad of 18 years, accusing his mother, one that suffered, but this examination was managed just in the same way. He denied every thing at first, but was drawn to confession of every thing that his examiners required.
So seven or eight of the confessors are said to have witnessed against the minister Burroughs, but I have seen many examinations wherein he is accused just like this of Lacey. Richard Carrier’s runs thus: “We met in a green, which was the minister’s pasture—we were in two companies at last. I think there was a few men with them.—I heard Sarah Good talk of a minister or two.—One of them was she that had been at the eastward; his name is Burroughs, and is a little man.—I remember not the other’s name.”
After these examinations, the reader will find no great difficulty in giving credit to the recantations of the confessors when they apprehended themselves out of danger. One or two may be sufficient.
“We whose names are underwritten, inhabitants of Andover; when as that horrible and tremendous judgment beginning at Salem village in the year 1692, by some called witchcraft, first breaking forth at Mr. Paris’s house, several young persons, being seemingly afflicted, did accuse several persons for afflicting them, and many there believing it so to be, we being informed that, if a person was sick, the afflicted persons could tell what or who was the cause of that sickness: Joseph Ballard, of Andover, his wife being sick at the same time, he either from himself or by the advice of others, fetched two of the persons, called the afflicted persons, from Salem village to Andover, which was the beginning of that dreadful calamity that befel us in Andover, believing the said accusations to be true, sent for the said persons to come together to the meeting house in Andover, the afflicted persons being there. After Mr. Barnard had been at prayer, we were blindfolded, and our hands were laid upon the afflicted persons, they being in their fits and falling into their fits at our coming into their presence, as they said; and some led us and laid our hands upon them, and then they said they were well, and that we were guilty of afflicting of them; whereupon we were all seized, as prisoners, by a warrant from the justice of the peace, and forthwithcarried to Salem. And by reason of that sudden surprisal, we knowing ourselves altogether innocent of that crime, we were all exceedingly astonished and amazed, and consternated and affrighted even out of our reason; and our nearest and dearest relations, seeing us in that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger, apprehending that there was no other way to save our lives, as the case was then circumstanced, but by our confessing ourselves to be such and such persons as the afflicted represented us to be, they, out of tender love and pity, persuaded us to confess what we did confess. And indeed that confession, that it is said we made, was no other than what was suggested to us by some gentlemen, they telling us that we were witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, and they knew that we knew it, which made us think that it was so; and our understanding, our reason, our faculties almost gone, we were not capable of judging our condition; as also the hard measures they used with us rendered us incapable of making our defence, but said any thing and every thing which they desired, and most of what we said was but in effect a consenting to what they said. Some time after, when we were better composed, they telling us of what we had confessed, we did profess that we were innocent and ignorant of such things; and we hearing that Samuel Wardwell had renounced his confession, and quickly after condemned and executed, some of us were told that we were going after Wardwell.
These unhappy people were not only in the manner which has been related, brought to confession, but also obliged to swear to the truth of it. At the Superior Court in January they all abode by their confessions. They could not tell what the disposition of the court and juries would be, and the temptation was the same as at the first examination. But there was one Margaret Jacobs, who had more courage than the rest. She had been brought not only to accuse herself, but Mr. Burroughs, the minister, and even her own grandfather. Before their execution, she was struck with horror, and begged forgiveness of Burroughs, who readily forgave her, and prayed with her, and for her. An imposthume in her head prevented her trial at the court of Oyer and Terminer. At the Superior Court in January she delivered a writing in the words following:—
“The humble declaration of Margaret Jacobs unto the honoured court now sitting at Salem, sheweth,
“That whereas your poor and humble declarant being closely confined here in Salem jail for the crime of witchcraft, which crime, thanks be to the Lord, I am altogether ignorant of, as will appear at the great day of judgment. May it please the honoured court, I was cried out upon by some of the possessed persons, as afflicting of them; whereupon I was brought to my examination, which persons at the sight of me fell down, which did very much startle and affright me. The Lord above knows Iknew nothing, in the least measure, how or who afflicted them; they told me, without doubt I did, or else they would not fall down at me; they told me if I would not confess, I should be put down into the dungeon and would be hanged, but if I would confess I should have my life; the which did so affright me, with my own vile wicked heart, to save my life made me make the confession I did, which confession, may it please the honoured court, is altogether false and untrue. The very first night after I had made my confession, I was in such horror of conscience that I could not sleep, for fear the Devil should carry me away for telling such horrid lies. I was, may it please the honoured court, sworn to my confession, as I understand since, but then, at that time, was ignorant of it, not knowing what an oath did mean. The Lord, I hope, in whom I trust, out of the abundance of his mercy, will forgive me my false forswearing myself. What I said was altogether false, against my grandfather, and Mr. Burroughs, which I did to save my life and to have my liberty; but the Lord, charging it to my conscience made me in so much horror, that I could not contain myself before I had denied my confession, which I did, though I saw nothing but death before me, choosing rather death with a quiet conscience, than to live in such horror, which I could not suffer. Whereupon my denying my confession, I was committed to close prison, where I have enjoyed more felicity in spirit a thousand times than I did before in my enlargement.
“And now, may it please your honours, your poor and humble declarant having, in part, given your honours a description of my condition, do leave it to your honours pious and judicious discretions to take pity and compassion on my young and tender years; to act and do with me as the Lord above and your honours shall see good, having no friend but the Lord to plead my cause for me; not being guilty in the least measure of the crime of witchcraft, nor any other sin that deserves death from man; and your poor and humble declarant shall forever pray, as she is bound in duty, for your honours’ happiness in this life, and eternal felicity in the world to come. So prays your honours declarant.
Margaret Jacobs.”
I shall now proceed in the relation of facts. The accusers having charged a great number in the county of Essex, I find in the examinations frequent mention of strangers whose shapes or specters were unknown to the afflicted, and now and then the names of a person at Boston and other distant places. Several some time after mention Mr. Dean, one of the ministers of Andover, but touch him more tenderly, somewhat as Mrs. Osgood in her confession, than they do Burroughs. Mr. Dean probably was better known and esteemed than the other, or he would have stood a bad chance.
Mr. Nathaniel Cary,[56]a gentleman of figure in the town of Charlestown,hearing that some at Salem had complained of his wife for afflicting them, they went to Salem together out of curiosity to see whether the afflicted knew her. They happened to arrive just as the justices were going into the meeting house, where they held the court, to examine prisoners. All that were brought in were accused, and the girls fell into fits as usual, but no notice was taken of Mrs. Cary except that one or two of the afflicted came to her and asked her name. After the examination her husband went into a tavern, having encouragement that he should have an opportunity of discoursing with the girl who had accused his wife. There he met with John the afflicted Indian, who attended as a servant in the house. He had been there but a short time before the girls came in and tumbled about the floor, and cried outCary, and a warrant from the justices was immediately sent to apprehend her. Two of the girls accused her, neither of whom she had ever heard of before, and soon after the Indian joined them. The justices, by her husband’s account, used her very roughly, and it was to no purpose to make any defence or to offer any bail, but she was committed to prison in Boston and removed from thence byhabeas corpusto Cambridge and there laid in irons. When the trials at Salem came on her husband went there, and finding how things were managed, thought it high time to contrive her escape. They fled to New-York, where Gov. Fletcher received them courteously. They petitioned for a trial in the county where they lived. If the judges supposed it necessary to try the offence where it was committed, her body being in Middlesex and her specter in Essex, it is probable they were under doubt.
About a week after, viz. the latter end of May, some of the afflicted accused Capt. John Alden,[57]of Boston. He had been many years master of a sloop in the country service employed between Boston and the eastern country, to supply the garrisons, &c.; and the justices allowed had always had the character of an honest man, though one of them, Gedney, told him at his examination he then saw cause to think otherwise. Alden, in the account he gives, says that the accuser pointed first to another man and said nothing, but that upon the man who held her his stooping down to her ear, she cried outAlden, Alden, &c. All were ordered into the street and a ring made, and then she cried out,There stands Alden, a bold fellow with his hat on, sells powder and shot to the Indians, lies with the squaws and has papooses. He was immediately taken into custody of the marshal [GeorgeHerrick] and required to deliver up his sword. A further examination was had in the meeting house, his hands held open by the officer that he might not pinch the afflicted, and upon their being struck down at the sight of him and making their usual cries he was committed to the jail in Boston, where he lay fifteen weeks, and then was prevailed on by his friends to make his escape, and to absent himself until the consternation of the people was a little abated, and they had recovered their senses.
By this time about one hundred persons were in the several prisons[58]charged with witchcraft. The court of Oyer and Terminer began at Salem the first week in June [June 2d]. Only one of the accused, viz. Bridget Bishop,[59]alias Oliver, was brought upon trial. She had been charged with witchcraft twenty years before, by a person who acknowledged his guilt in accusing her upon his death-bed; but being a fractious old woman the losses the neighbors met with in their cattle and poultry, or by oversetting their carts, &c., were ascribed to her, and now given in evidence. This, together with the hearsay from the specters sworn to in court by the afflicted and confessing confederates, and an excrescence found some where upon her which was called a teat, was thought by court and jury plenary proof, and she was convicted, and on the 10th of June executed.
The court adjourned to the 30th of June, and in the mean time the Governor and Council desired the opinion of several ministers upon the state of things as they then stood, which was given as follows:—
“The return of several ministers consulted by his excellency and the honourable council upon the present witchcraft in Salem village.
Boston, June 15th, 1692.
“1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbours, that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities.
“2. We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honourable rulers, to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected.
“3. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil’s authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us; for we should not be ignorant of his devices.
“4. As in complaints upon witchcrafts, there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of presumption, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is necessary, that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness towards those that may be complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation.
“5. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as is possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may no thing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God; but that the directions given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Bernard [be consulted in such a case].
“6. Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and, much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused person’s being represented by a specter unto the afflicted; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may, by God’s permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the Devil’s legerdemains.
“7. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given to the Devils by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusations of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid unto their charge.
“8. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government, the speedy and vigorous prosecution of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the direction given in the laws of God, and the wholesome statutes of the English nation, for the detection of witchcrafts.”[60]
The two first and the last sections of this advice took away the force of all the others, and the prosecutions went on with more vigor than before. The exquisite caution in separating the evidence upon the Devil’s authority from the rest, in the third section, and the disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force is from the Devil alone in the seventh section, must have puzzled the judges, and they had need of some further authorities to guide them than Perkins or Bernard,[61]or any other books they were furnished with.[62]
I was at a loss until I met with this return, by what law they proceeded.[63]The old constitution was dissolved; no laws of the colony were in force, witchcraft is no offence by the common law of England. The statute of James I. was indeed more ancient than the colony charter, but no statute had ever been adopted here. The General Assembly had not then met, and there could have been no provision made by a Province law, but it seems by the eighth section that the English statutes were made the rule upon this extraordinary occasion. But what authority the court had to change the sentence from burning to hanging, I cannot conceive. Before the other trials the law against witchcraft under the first charter was established with the other Colony laws. The authority by which the court sat may as well be called in question. No authority is given by the Province charter to any powers short of the whole General Court to constitute courts of justice. The Governor indeed, with the consent of the Council, appoints judges, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, and all officers belonging to the courts. It is strange they did not tarry until the Assembly met. A judge shall not be punished for mere error of judgment, but it certainlybehooves him, in a trial for life especially, to consider well by what authority he acts.
The court was held again by adjournment at Salem, June 30. Six [five] women were brought upon trial, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes.[64]The court and jury seemed to have had no difficulty with any but Nurse. She was a church member, and probably her good character caused the jury to bring in a verdict not guilty; but the accusers making a very great clamor and the court expressing their dissatisfaction with the verdict, the jury desired to go out again, and then brought her in guilty. The foreman of the jury gave the following certificate to satisfy her relations what induced an alteration of the verdict.
“July 4th, 1692.“I Thomas Fisk, the subscriber hereof, being one of them that were of the jury the last week at Salem court, upon the trial of Rebekah Nurse, &c. being desired, by some of the relations, to give a reason why the jury brought her inguilty, after the verdictnot guilty; I do hereby give my reasons to be as follows, viz.:“When the verdict,not guilty, was [given], the honoured court was pleased to object against it, saying to them, that they think they let slip the words which the prisoner at the bar spake against herself, which were spoken in reply to Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter, who had been faulty in setting their hands to the Devil’s book, as they had confessed formerly; the words were, ‘What do these persons give in evidence against me now? they used to come among us?’ After the honoured court had manifested their dissatisfaction of the verdict, several of the jury declared themselves desirous to go out again, and thereupon the honoured court gave leave; but when we came to consider the case, I could not tell how to take her words as an evidence against her, till she had a further opportunity to put her sense upon them, if she would take it; and then going into court, I mentioned the words aforesaid, which by one of the court were affirmed to have been spoken by her, she being then at the bar, but made no reply nor interpretation of them; whereupon, these words were to me a principal evidence against her.Thomas Fisk.”
“July 4th, 1692.
“I Thomas Fisk, the subscriber hereof, being one of them that were of the jury the last week at Salem court, upon the trial of Rebekah Nurse, &c. being desired, by some of the relations, to give a reason why the jury brought her inguilty, after the verdictnot guilty; I do hereby give my reasons to be as follows, viz.:
“When the verdict,not guilty, was [given], the honoured court was pleased to object against it, saying to them, that they think they let slip the words which the prisoner at the bar spake against herself, which were spoken in reply to Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter, who had been faulty in setting their hands to the Devil’s book, as they had confessed formerly; the words were, ‘What do these persons give in evidence against me now? they used to come among us?’ After the honoured court had manifested their dissatisfaction of the verdict, several of the jury declared themselves desirous to go out again, and thereupon the honoured court gave leave; but when we came to consider the case, I could not tell how to take her words as an evidence against her, till she had a further opportunity to put her sense upon them, if she would take it; and then going into court, I mentioned the words aforesaid, which by one of the court were affirmed to have been spoken by her, she being then at the bar, but made no reply nor interpretation of them; whereupon, these words were to me a principal evidence against her.
Thomas Fisk.”
Nurse, being informed of the use which had been made of her words, gave in a declaration to the court, that “when she said Hobbs and her daughter were of her company, she meant no more than that they were prisoners as well as herself; and that, being hard of hearing, she did not know what the foreman of the jury said.” But her declaration had no effect.
The minister of Salem Mr. [Nicholas] Noyes was over zealous in these prosecutions. He excommunicated this honest old woman after her condemnation. One part of the form seems to have been unnecessary, delivering her over to Satan. He supposed she had delivered herself up to him long before. But her life and conversation had been such, of which many testimonies were given, that the remembrance of it, as soon as the people returned to the use of their reason, must have wiped off all the reproach which had been occasioned by the manner of her death.
Calef, who when he wrote was generally supposed to be under unreasonable prejudice against the country, which lessened the credit of his narrative, says that at the trial of Sarah Good, one of the afflicted fell into a fit, and after recovery cried out that the prisoner had stabbed her and broke the knife in doing it, and a piece of the knife was found upon the afflicted person; but a young man declared that the day before he broke that very knife and threw away a piece of it, this afflicted person being then present; and adds that the court bid her tell no more lies, but went on notwithstanding this fraud to improve her as a witness against other prisoners.[65]This account, if true, would give me a more unfavorable opinion even of the integrity of the court, if I had not met with something not unlike to it in the trials before Sir Matthew Hale. The afflicted children in their fits upon the least touch from Rose Cullender, one of the supposed witches, would shriek out, which they would not do when touched by any other person. Lest there should be any fraud, Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, Sergeant Keeling and other gentlemen attended one of the girls whilst she was in her fits at another part of the hall, and one of the witches was brought, and an apron put before the girl’s eyes, but instead of the witch’s hand another person’s hand was taken to touch the girl, who thereupon shrieked out as she used to do. The gentlemen returned and declared to the court they believed the whole was an imposture. The witch was found guilty notwithstanding, and the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict and awarded sentence accordingly.
Susannah Martin had been suspected, ever since 1669, so that a great number of witch stories were told of her, and many of them given in evidence. One of the other being told by the minister at the place of execution, that he knew she was a witch, and therefore advised her to confess, she replied that he lied, and that she was no more a witch than he was a wizard, and if he took away her life, God would give him blood to drink.
At one of these trials it is said that one of the accusers charged Mr. Willard, a minister of Boston, and that she was sent out of court, and afterwards a report spread that she was mistaken in the person.[66]It is more probable that she intended [John] Willard, who was then in prison, and that it was given out that the audience were mistaken.
At the next adjournment, Aug. 5th, George Burroughs, John Proctorand Elizabeth his wife, John Willard, George Jacobs and Martha Carrier were all found guilty, condemned, and all executed the 19th of August, except Elizabeth Proctor, who escaped by pleading her belly.
Burroughs had preached some years before, but it seems not to acceptance, at Salem village. Afterward he preached at Wells in the Province of Maine. As a specimen of the proceedings in all the trials we shall be a little more particular in relating his.
The indictment was as follows.
Anno Regis et Reginæ, &c. quarto.
Essex ss. The jurors for our sovereign lord and lady the king and queen present, that George Burroughs, late of Falmouth in the province of Massachusetts Bay, clerk, the ninth day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord and lady William and Mary, by the grace of God of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, king and queen, defenders of the faith, &c. and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts called witchcrafts and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practised and exercised, at and within the township of Salem, in the county of Essex aforesaid, in, upon and against one Mary Walcot, of Salem village, in the county of Essex, single woman; by which said wicked arts, the said Mary Walcot, the ninth day of May in the fourth year abovesaid, and divers other days and times as well before as after, was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted and tormented, against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady the king and queen, and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided. EndorsedBilla vera. Three other bills were found for the like upon other persons, to all which he pleaded not guilty, and put himself upon trial, &c.
The afflicted and confessing witches were first examined, for although, by the advice of the elders, this kind of evidence was not to be deemed infallible; yet it was presumptive, and, with other circumstances, sufficient proof. It would be tedious to recite the whole of this evidence, especially as it was of the same sort with what has been already related in the confessions. The most material circumstance which distinguished him [Burroughs] from the rest, was, that he was to be a king in Satan’s empire.
The other evidence was that being a little man he had performed feats beyond the strength of a giant; particularly that he would take a gun of seven feet barrel behind the lock and hold it out with one hand; that he would take up a barrel of molasses or cider and carry them in a disadvantageous place and posture from a canoe to the shore; and when in his vindication he urged that an Indian which was there held out the gun as he did, the witnesses not seeing or not remembering any Indian, it was supposed it must be the black man or the devil, who, the witnesses swore, looks like an Indian.
Besides this it was sworn that he had treated his wives, having been twice married, very harshly, and would pretend, when he had been absent fromhome, that he could tell what had been said to them, and that he persuaded them to swear, and to oblige themselves by a writing, which in the printed account of the trial is called “a Covenant,” not to reveal his secrets, and that they had privately complained to the neighbors that their house was haunted by spirits. One of his wife’s brothers also swore that going out after strawberries they rode very softly—slowly, I suppose—two or three miles, when Burroughs went into the bushes, after which they rode back a quick pace, and when they came near home, to their astonishment found him on foot with them, and that he fell to chiding his wife for talking with her brother about him, and said he knew their thoughts, which his brother intimated was more than the Devil knew, but Burroughs replied his god told him.
The prisoner said, in his defence, a man was with him when his brother left him, which was also supposed to be the black man.
This was the sum of the evidence. He is said to have used many twistings and turnings, and to have contradicted himself in making his defence. At his execution he concluded his prayer with the Lord’s prayer, probably to show his innocence, for it was generally received that a witch could not say the Lord’s prayer, and it was used as a test at the examinations when several of the old women, as children often do, blundered atgiveandforgivein the fourth and fifth petitions, and it was improved against them.
September 9th,Martha Corey,Mary Esty,Alice Parker,Ann Pudcator, Dorcas Hoar and Mary Bradbury were tried; and Sept. 17Margaret Scott,Wilmot Read,Samuel Wardwell,Mary Parker, Abigail Faulkner, Rebekah Eames, Mary Lacey, Ann Foster, Abigail Hobbs, and all received sentence of death. Those in italics were executed September 22d.
Mary Esty, who was sister to Nurse, put into the court a petition in which she tells them that, although she was conscious of her own innocence, yet she did not ask her own life, but prayed them before they condemned any more they would examine some of the confessing witches, who she knew had belied themselves and others, which she was sure would appear in the world to which she was going, if it did not in this world.
Those that were not executed probably confessed their guilt. All whose examinations remain on the files, of which there are three or four, did so. Wardwell had confessed, but recanted and suffered. His own wife, as well as his daughter, accused him and saved themselves. There are a great number of instances of children and parents accusing each other. I have met with no other than this of husbands or wives, and surely this one ought not to have been suffered.
Giles Corey was the only person, besides what have been named, who suffered death. He, seeing the fate of those who had put themselves upon trial, refused to plead to the indictment; but the judges who were not careful enough in observing the rules of law in favor of the prisoners, took care to do it against this unhappy man, and he was pressed to death; the only instanceI have ever heard of in any of the English colonies.[67]History furnishes us perhaps with as many instances of cruelty proceeding from superstition, as from the most savage barbarous temper of mind.
Besides the irregularities which I have already mentioned in these trials, the court admitted evidence to be given of facts, not laid in the indictments, to prove witchcraft eight, ten or fifteen years before; indeed, no other sort of evidence was offered to prove facts in the indictments but the spectral evidence, which, in the opinion of the divines, was not sufficient. It would have been well if they had consulted lawyers[68]also, who would have toldthem that evidence ought not to be admitted even against the general character of persons charged criminally unless they offer evidence in favor of it, much less ought their whole lives to be arraigned and no opportunity given them of making defence.
This court of Oyer and Terminer, happily for the country, sat no more. Nineteen persons had been executed; but the eyes of the country in general were not yet opened. The prison at Salem was so full that some were obliged to be removed, and many were in other prisons reserved for trial. The General Court which sat in October, although they had revived the old colony law which was in these words, “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death”—yet this not being explicit enough, they enacted another in the words of the statute of King James, which continued in force until the trials were over, but both were afterwards disallowed by the crown.[69]Another act was passed, constituting a Supreme Court,[70]which was to be held at Salem in January; but before that time many who had been forward in these prosecutions became sensible of their error. Time for consideration seems to be reason enough to be assigned for it; but another reason has been given. Ordinarily persons of the lowest rank, the dregs of the people, have had the misfortune of being charged with witchcraft; and although this was the case in many instances here, yet there were a number of women of as reputable families as any in the towns where they lived, who were charged and imprisoned, and several persons of still superior rank were hinted at by the pretended bewitched or the confessingwitches. The latter had no other way of saving themselves. Some of the persons were publicly named. Dudley Bradstreet, a justice of the peace, who had been appointed one of President Dudley’s council, thought it necessary to abscond; so did his brother John Bradstreet, sons of the late Governor Bradstreet. Calef says it was intimated that Sir William Phips’s lady was accused.[71]One at Boston complained of being afflicted by the secretary of Connecticut colony.[72]
At the Superior Court held at Salem in January, the grand jury found bills against about fifty persons, all but one or two women, who either were in prison, or under bonds for their appearance. They were all but three acquitted by the petty jury, and those three were pardoned by the Governor. Divers others were brought upon trial soon after at Charlestown in the county of Middlesex, and all acquitted. The juries changed sooner than the judges. The opinion which the latter had of their own superior understanding and judgment probably made them more backward in owning or discovering their errors. One of them, however, Mr. Sewall, who always had the character of great integrity, at a public fast sometime after gave in a bill, or note, to the minister, acknowledging his errors and desiring to humble himself in the sight of God and his people, and stood up while the note was reading.[73]It is said that the chief justice Mr. Stoughtonbeing informed of this act of one of his brethren, remarked upon it, that for himself, when he sat in judgment he had the fear of God before his eyes, and gave his opinion according to the best of his understanding, and although it might appear afterwards that he had been in an error, he saw no necessity of a public acknowledgment of it. One of the ministers,who in the time of it approved of the court’s proceeding, remarked in his diary soon after that many were of opinion innocent blood had been shed. The afflicted were never brought to trial for their imposture. Many of them are said to have proved profligate, abandoned people, and others to have passed the remainder of their lives in a state of obscurity and contempt.[74]
Erratum.—The reference, in the text, to Note 49, should have been placed after the word “proceeded,” at the end of the first sentence of the paragraph.P.
Erratum.—The reference, in the text, to Note 49, should have been placed after the word “proceeded,” at the end of the first sentence of the paragraph.
P.