THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION OF 1692.
THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION OF 1692.
In May last I had occasion to consult the original manuscript of Gov. Hutchinson’s second volume of theHistory of Massachusetts, which, it is well known, is among the Hutchinson papers in the State archives in Boston. I had never before seen the manuscript, and did not readily find the passage of which I was in search. The first portion of the manuscript seemed to be missing, and its place was supplied by matter which belonged to the Appendix. My first impression was that the missing sheets were those which Gov. Hutchinson did not recover after the stamp-act riot of 1765. Finding the matter of the Appendix out of place, suggested that the volume might have been carelessly arranged for binding. On collating the manuscript the early portion was found in another part of the volume. This was the copy used by the printers.
In my search I came to sheets which contained the subject matter of the printed text, but expressed in different language. I saw, on a closer examination, that this was an earlier draft, and the identical manuscript which had passed the ordeal of the riot of 1765; for portions of it were much defaced, and bore the marks of being trampled in the mud. The copy from which the volume was printed was evidently prepared at a later date. For the convenience of those who may hereafter consult this manuscript, I made in folio 7 (following the matter of the Appendix), the following memoranda:—
“There has been an error in binding this manuscript. The matter which precedes this is Appendix No. 1 (printed pp. 449-481, edition 1767, and pp. 404-423, edition 1795). The first portion of the history proper, ending with manuscript page 28 (to printed p. 40, edition 1767, and p. 43, edition 1795), has been placed in folios 92-100. Page 29 is opposite. This is the manuscript from which the second volume was printed.
“In folio 55 is the beginning of another manuscript, an earlier draft, from which the author prepared the narrative which appears in the printed volume.The earlier draft, ending in folio 91, carries the substance of the narrative to the word “Boston,” on p. 313, edition of 1767, and p. 284, edition of 1795.
“These memoranda were made May 17, 1870 (with the approval of Mr. Secretary Warner), at which time the earlier draft was first identified.”
[Signed.]
Both manuscripts are wholly in the autograph of Gov. Hutchinson, and they seem to be prepared with equal care. In form of expression and phraseology they are quite unlike. Incidents and opinions contained in the earlier draft are changed, abridged and sometimes omitted in the later draft. In matters of fact the earlier draft is often more precise and accurate than the printed text, for the author doubtless prepared it with the original authorities before him.
The researches of Gov. Hutchinson into the early annals of Massachusetts are of the highest historical value. He had opportunities of access to original papers such as no person now possesses. He had the tastes, the capacity for close application and research, the judicial understanding and the freedom from prejudice and partizanship which characterize the genuine historian. His style, if not always elegant, is clear and simple, and singularly free from that sensational and rhetorical method of statement which is the bane of much of the historical writing of the present day.
Each of the several editions of Gov. Hutchinson’sHistory of Massachusettshas become rare, and a new and revised edition will soon be demanded. In the preparation of that work the earlier draft of the second volume, which has now come to light, will furnish important materials. For the purpose of exhibiting the character and value of this manuscript, and for contributing some additional information upon a special subject, I have extracted for publication that portion which treats the “Witchcraft Delusion of 1692.”
So far as a presentation of facts is concerned, no account of that dreadful tragedy has appeared which is more accurate and truthful than Gov. Hutchinson’s narrative. His theory on the subject—that it was wholly the result of fraud and deception on the part of the “afflicted children”—will not be generally accepted at the present day, and his reasoning on this point will not be deemed conclusive. That there were fraud and deception attending it, no one will doubt; but there is now a tendency to trace an analogy between the phenomena then exhibited, and modern spiritual manifestations. No man of any reputation who lived in that generation, and saw what transpired at Salem Village and its vicinity, doubted that there was some influence then exerted which could not be explained by the known laws of matter or of mind. As these men left the stage, the theory of fraud was gradually accepted by their descendants; and at the period when Gov. Hutchinson wrote, it was well nigh the universal belief among the educated classes.
For the information of persons interested in tracing the resemblance between the abnormal manifestations of our time and those of the seventeenth century, I have appended notes to the other cases mentioned by Gov. Hutchinson, which may lead such inquirers to a further knowledge of their psychological phenomena.
The author’s notes are indicated by stars, &c., and are signedH.The editor’s notes are indicated by numerals, and are signedP.
W. F. P.
On [mutilated][1]May, at a general council, there was an appointment of sheriffs, justices and other civil officers, and, among the rest, Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer for the trial of witches. Upon this occasion the Governor suffered the council to choose the officers, and he gave or refused his consent to the choice—a mistake which no other governor has made, and which was giving up a right derived to him from the charter, the great difference between a nomination and assent being very obvious.
The old constitution being dissolved, it was absolutely necessary an Assembly should be called. What was the rule of law in the meantime might be made a question; but at the first meeting of the General Assembly (the 8th of June) an act passed that all the laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and the Colony of New-Plymouth, not being repugnant to the laws of England, nor inconsistent with the charter, should be in force to the 10th of November, 1692, in the respective colonies, except where other provisions should be made by acts of assembly; and all justices of the peace had the same power given them in the execution of laws which magistrates used to have. No other acts were passed except two or three relative to the revenue; an act for erecting a naval office; another to enable the Governor, with the advice of the council, for six months to come, to raise and transport, or march the militia into either of the governments of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Narragansett or New-York; and another act for establishing a court of sessions of the peace, and inferior court of common pleas. The assembly was adjourned on the second of July to the second Wednesday in October.
The confusion occasioned by the supposed witchcraft seems to have been the reason why nothing more was done towards a body of laws better adapted to the new constitution; for on the 2d of June the commissioners held their special court at Salem.
Before I relate their proceedings, I will collect, as far as I am able, the several instances of what was called Witchcraft, from the beginning of the country.
It is natural to suppose that the country, at the first entrance of the Europeans into it, afforded the most suitable scene, especially as a notion prevailed that the savages all worshipped the Devil; but I find no mention of witchcraft for the first twelve or fifteen years. About the year 1645,[2]several people in Springfield, upon Connecticut River, were suspected of witchcraft, and a greater number were supposed to be bewitched; among the rest two of the minister’s children.[3]Great pains were taken to prove the facts upon the suspected persons; and about the year 1650, a poor wretch, Mary Oliver,[4]no doubt weary of her life, after long examination, was brought to confession. It does not appear that she was executed.
Whilst this inquiry was making, Margaret Jones[5]was executed at Charlestown.[6]Mention is made by Mr. Hale, of a woman at Dorchester,[7]and another at Cambridge[8]about the same time, all denying what they were charged with, at their death; and soon after Mrs. Hibbins[9][10]the magistrate’s widow, was executed at Boston. In 1662, at Hartford, about 30 miles below Springfield, upon the same Connecticut River, one Ann Cole, whose father is said to have been a godly man who lived next door to a Dutch family, was supposed to be possessed by a Demon who sometimes spake Dutch and sometimes English, and sometimes an unintelligible language, the demons speaking in her things unknown to herself, and holding a conference, &c. Several ministers who were present took the conference in writing with the names of the persons mentioned as actors; and, among the rest, of a woman in prison upon suspicion, one Greensmith. Upon examination she confessed also, and appeared to be astonished at the discovery, and owned that she and the rest had been familiar with a demon who had carnal knowledge of her, and though she had not made a formal covenant with him, yet she had promised always to be ready at his call, and was to have had a high frolick at Christmas, and then the agreement was to be signed. The woman upon this confession was executed.[11][12]Goffe, the Regicide, says in his diary, January 20, ’62, that three witches were condemned at Hartford; and afterwards, Feb. 24, that the maids were well after one of the witches washanged. In 1669, Susanna Martin, of Salisbury, was bound over to the Superior court upon suspicion of witchcraft, but discharged without trial.[13]
Anotherventriloqua, Elizabeth Knap,[14]at Groton, in 1671, much as Ann Cole had done at Hartford, alarmed the people there. Her demon was not so cunning. He railed at the godly minister of the town, and at the same time uttered many blasphemous expressions; and then charged all her afflictions upon a good woman in the neighborhood. The woman had better fortune than perhaps as good an one had at Salem some years after.[15]The people would not believe the Devil, and Elizabeth confessed that she had been deluded, and that it was the Devil himself who tormented her in the shape of good persons. In 1673, Eunice Cole,[16]of Hampton, was tried, and the jury found her not legally guilty; but that there were strong grounds to suspect her of familiarity with the Devil.
In 1679, the house of William Morse,[17]of Newbury, was troubled with throwing bricks, stones and sticks, and playing so many pranks that he that believes the story told by Glanvil of the devils at Tedworth cannot avoid giving credit to this. It is worth observing that none of the family, except one boy, were afflicted. He was tossed about from one side of the room tothe other, would have knives stuck in his back, and once one of them seemed to come out of his mouth. He would bark like a dog, and cluck like a hen, and once was carried away and could not be found for some time; but at length was discovered creeping on one side, dumb and lame, and, when able to express himself said “that P——l[18]had carried him over the top of the house, and hurt him against a cart wheel in the barn.” Morse took the boy to bed with him and his wife, and had the chamber pot with its contents thrown upon them, and they were severely pinched and pulled out of bed, &c. These things are related very seriously,[19]and it is a great wonder that P——l escaped; for it does not appear that anybody suspected the knavery of the boy.
In 1683, the demons removed to Connecticut River again, where the house of one Desborough[20]was molested, and stones, earth, &c. thrown at him, not only through the windows, but doors, by an invisible hand; and a fire, kindled nobody knew how, burnt up no small part of his estate. It seems one of Desborough’s neighbors had a quarrel with him about a chest of clothes which Desborough detained; and, as soon as they were restored, the troubles ceased. All was charged upon the demons, and nobody, from anything which now appears, suspected the honest neighbor.
In 1682, the house of George Walton,[21]a Quaker, at Portsmouth, inNew-Hampshire, was attacked in much the same manner. Walton had contention with a woman about a tract of land, and she was supposed to have done the mischief but by witchcraft.
About the same time another house was infested at Salmon falls[22]in New-Hampshire. And, in 1684, one Philip Smith,[23]a justice of the court,and representative of the town of Hadley, on Connecticut River, an hypochondriac person, supposed himself to be under an evil-hand; and suspected a woman, one of his neighbors; and, continuing in that state until he died, he was generally supposed to be bewitched to death.
In 1685, a large and circumstantial account of all or most of these instances was published,[24]and anybody who doubted the truth of them would have been pronounced a Sadducee.
In 1688[25]begun a more alarming instance than any which preceded it. Four of the children of John Goodwin, a grave man and good liver at the north part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard those who were then upon the stage speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remarkable for an ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, and were supposed to be incapable of imposture or fraud. The eldest was a girl about thirteen years of age, it is said, it may be something more. She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, and gave the girl very bad language; after which she fell into a sort of fits, which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sisters and two of her brothers, whose ages were not transmitted,[26]soon followed her example, and they are said to have been tormented in the same parts of their bodies at the same time, though kept at a distance so as not to know one another’s complaints. One thing was remarkable, and ought to have been taken more notice of, that all their complaints were in the day time, and that they slept comfortably all night. They were sometimes deaf, then dumb, then blind, and sometimes all these together. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make the most piteous outcries of being cut with knives and beat; and plain marks of wounds might afterwards be discovered. The ministers of Boston and Charlestown kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled house; and after that the youngest child made no more complaints. But the magistratesunfortunately interposed; and the old woman was apprehended, examined, committed and brought to trial, and seems neither to have owned nor denied her guilt, being either really a distracted person, or endeavoring to appear such; and, before sentence of death was passed, the opinion of physicians was taken; but they returned that she wascompos mentis, and she was executed, declaring at her death the children should not, or perhaps it might be, would not be relieved by her death, and that others besides her had a hand in their afflictions. This no doubt came to the children’s knowledge; and their complaints immediately increased beyond what they had ever been before. As this relation is in print,[27]and but few persons have doubted that there was a preternatural agency in the case of these children, and [as] Mr. Baxter, in a preface to an edition published in London, says: “the evidence is so convincing that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee who will not believe,” I will spend a little more time in examining it, than otherwise I should think convenient.
The eldest is after this the principal subject; and was taken into a minister’s[28]family, where for some days she behaved orderly, but after that suddenly fell into her fits. The relation chiefly consists of their being violently beaten by specters; put into red hot ovens, and their sweating and panting; having cold water thrown upon them, and then shivering; being roastedupon invisible spits; having their heads nailed to the floor, so as that they could hardly be pulled away; their joints first stiff and then limber; pins stuck into their flesh; choaked until they were black in the face; having the witches invisible chain upon them; dancing with a chair, like one riding on horseback; being able to read bad books, and blind if they looked into a good one; being drunk without anything to intoxicate.
There is nothing in all this but what may be accounted for from craft and fraud, which children of that age are very capable of; or from agility of body, in which these children are exceeded by common tumblers much younger. There are some instances mentioned of another sort, namely: of their being tormented when any person took up a bible to look into it whilst the children were in the room, although their faces were another way, and they could not see it until it was laid aside; their telling of plate at the bottom of the well, which, it is said, they had never heard of before—and yet, in fact, plate had been lost there; of their eyes being put out when they were told to look to God, not only in English, but in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew; whereas from the Indian language no such effect followed, the Devil being said not to have understood that language[29]—all which serve only to evidence the inattention and the strong prejudice in favor of the children in those who were their observers. The strangest circumstance of all is that the children, after their return to their ordinary behavior, made profession of religion, and reckoned their affliction among the incentives to it. One of them was, many years after, one of my tenants, a grave, religious woman, [and] was never known to have made any confession of fraud, probably was never charged with it. But even all this is not miraculous.[30][31]The account of this affair being made public obtained general credit.
At Salem was the next scene, and more tragical by far than any which had preceded.
Whilst the tragedy was acting, there were but few people who doubted the hand of the Devil, and fewer that dared to own their doubts.
When the Commissioners went through the town of Boston on their journey to Salem, they stopped at the house of Col. Hutchinson,[32]one of the council, who advised them, before they began any trial, to see if they could not whip the Devil out of the afflicted; but this advice was rejected.
Many of the ministers of the country, who were much consulted in this affair, had a confirmed opinion of a very familiar intercourse between the visible and invisible worlds. This, together with the books which had been brought into the country not long before, containing relations of the like things in England, rendered the minds of the people in general susceptible of credit to every the like story related here. The works of Perkins[33]and other non-conformist divines were in the hands of many, and there is no doubt that Goodwin’s children had read or heard the stories in Glanvil,[34]having very exactly imitated them. Indeed all the examinations at Salem have, in almost all the circumstances, the like to match them in the account given to the world a little while before by this relator. This conformity, instead of rendering the afflicted suspected, was urged in confirmation of the truth of their stories, the Old-England demons and the New-, being so near alike. Nobody thought a parcel of young girls could have so much of the Devil in them as to combine together in an attempt to take away the lives of such a multitude of people as were accused by them. The authorities of Keble,[35]Dalton,[36]and other lawyers of note, who lay down rules of conviction as absurd as any ever adopted in New-England, gave a color to the courts and juries in their proceedings, though no authority had so great weight as that of Sir Matthew Hale,[37]reverenced inthe country for his gravity and piety, and his favorable opinion of the old Puritanism, as much as for his knowledge in the law. The trials of the witches in Suffolk had been published not long before.[38]The evidence here was of the same sort with what had been judged sufficient to hang people there. Reproach then for hanging witches, although it has been often cast upon the people of New-England by those of Old-, yet it must have been done with an ill grace. We had their best authority to justify us; besides the prejudices of education [and] disposition from thence to give a serious, solemn construction to even common events in Providence, might be urged as an excuse here in some measure; but in England this was an age of as great gaiety as any age whatever, and of as great infidelity in general as any which preceded it.
Sir William Phips, the Governor just arrived,[39]seems to have given in to the prevailing opinion. He was much under the direction of the spiritual fathers of the country. Mr. Stoughton, the Lieut. Governor, and at the head of the Court[40]for trial of the witches, and who had great influence upon the rest of the judges, had taken up this notion that, although the Devil might appear in the shape of a guilty person, yet he would never be permitted to assume the shape of an innocent person.[41]This opinion, at first, was generally received and would not bear to be contradicted. Some of the most religious women who were accused, when they saw the appearance of distress and torture in the girls, and heard their solemn declarations that they saw the shapes or specters of the accused afflicting them, persuadedthemselves they were witches, and that the Devil, somehow or other, though they could not remember when, had taken possession of their evil hearts, and obtained some sort of assent to his afflicting in their shapes; and thereupon they confessed themselves to be guilty.
Even to this day, the country seems rather to be divided in opinion whether it was the accused or the afflicted who were under some preternatural or diabolical possession, than whether the afflicted were under bodily distempers, or altogether guilty of fraud and imposture.
The trial of Richard Hatheway,[42]before Lord Chief Justice Holt, opened the eyes of all except the lowest part of the people in England; and an act of Parliament in his late Majesty’s reign[43]will prevent the prejudice which remains in them from the mischiefs it used to produce on juries in judicial proceedings. It is a great pity the like examples of conviction and punishment had not been made here. I hope an impartial narrative of the supposed witchcrafts at Salem will convince the New-England reader that there was no thing preternatural in the whole affair; but all proceeded from the most amazing wickedness of the accusers.
In February, 1691 [-2], a daughter and a niece of Mr. Parris,[44]the ministerof Salem village, girls of ten or eleven years of age, and one or two more girls in the neighborhood, made the same sort of complaints as Goodwin’s children had done two or three [four] years before. The physicians, having no other way of accounting for the disorder, pronounced them bewitched. An Indian woman who lived with the minister, with her husband,[45]tried an experiment to find out the witch. This coming to the children’s knowledge, they cried out upon the Indian woman as appearing to them, pinching, pricking and tormenting them, and fell into fits, became convulsed, distorted, &c.
Tituba, the name of the woman, who was a Spanish Indian, as some accounts tell us, owned that her mistress had taught her in her own country how to find out a witch; but she denied her being one herself. Several private fasts were kept at the minister’s house, and several more by the whole village, and by neighboring parishes, and a public fast through the colony to seek to God to rebuke Satan, &c. Soon after the number of the complainants increased, and among them girls, two or three women, and some old enough to be admitted witnesses. These had their fits too, and cried out, not only upon Tituba, but upon an old melancholy distracted woman, Sarah Osburn, and a bed-rid old woman, Sarah Good. Tituba, urged to it by her master as she afterwards declared,[46]confessed herself a witch, and that the two old women were confederates with her, and thereupon they were all committed to prison; and Tituba being searched was said to have the marks of the Devil’s wounding her upon her body,[47]but more probably of Spanish cruelty. This was the first of March. About three weeks after two other women who were church-members and of good character, [Martha] Corey and [Rebecca] Nurse, were complained of, examined and would confess nothing, but were committed. Not only the three children, while the women were under examination, fell into their fits and had all their complaints, but the mother of one of the children and wife of Thomas Putnam complained of Nurse as tormenting her, and made most terrible shrieking to the amazement of all in the neighborhood. Such wasthe infatuation that a child[48]of Sarah Good, not above four or five years old, was committed also, being charged with biting the afflicted who showed the print of small teeth upon their arms.
Soon after, April 3, Sarah Cloyse, sister to Nurse, being at meeting, and Mr. Parris taking for his text John vi. 70, “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a Devil?” she was offended and went out of meeting, and she was soon after complained of, examined and committed; and about the same time Elizabeth Proctor was charged; and, her husband accompanying her to her examination, he was complained of also, and both committed. The great imprudence, to say the best of it, in those who were in authority [Hathorne and Corwin, local magistrates], in encouraging and putting words into the mouths of the accusers, or suffering others to do it, will appear by the examination of these persons remaining upon the files of the court. The accusers and accused were brought before the court. Mr. Parris, who had been over-officious from the beginning, was employed to examine these,[49]and most of the rest of the accused.
At a court[50]held at Salem, 11th April, 1692, by the honoured Thomas Danforth, deputy governor. Q. John (i. e. the Indian), who hurt you? A. Goody Proctor first, and then Goody Cloyse. Q. What did she do to you? A. She brought the book to me. Q. John, tell the truth, who hurts you? Have you been hurt? A. The first was a gentlewoman I saw. Q. Who next? A. Goody Cloyse. Q. But who hurt you next? A. Goody Proctor. Q. What did she do to you? A. She choked me, and brought the book. Q. How oft did she come to torment you? A. A good many times, she and Goody Cloyse. Q. Do they come to you in the night as well as the day? A. They come most in the day. Q. Who? A. Goody Cloyse and Goody Proctor. Q. Where did she take hold of you? A. Upon my throat, to stop my breath. Q. Do you know Goody Cloyse andGoody Proctor? A. Yes, here is Goody Cloyse. (Cloyse) When did I hurt thee? A. A great many times. (Cloyse) Oh, you are a grievous liar. Q. What did this Goody Cloyse do to you? A. She pinched and bit me till the blood came. Q. How long since this woman came and hurt you? A. Yesterday at meeting. Q. At any time before? A. Yes, a great many times.
Mary Walcot, who hurts you? A. Goody Cloyse. Q. What did she do to you? A. She hurt me. Q. Did she bring the book? A. Yes. Q. What were you to do with it? A. To touch it, and I should be well.—Then she fell into a fit. Q. Doth she come alone? A. Sometimes alone, and sometimes in company with Goody Nurse and Goody Corey, and a great many I do not know.—Then she fell into a fit again.
Abigail Williams, did you see a company at Mr. Parris’s house eat and drink? A. Yes Sir, that was their sacrament. Q. How many were there? A. About forty, and Goody Cloyse and Goody Good were their deacons. Q. What was it? A. They said it was our blood, and they had it twice that day. Q. Mary Walcot, have you seen a white man? A. Yes Sir, a great many times. Q. What sort of a man was he? A. A fine grave man, and when he came, he made all the witches to tremble. Abigail Williams confirmed the same, and that they had such a sight at Deacon Ingersoll’s. Q. Who was at Deacon Ingersoll’s then? A. Goody Cloyse, Goody Nurse, Goody Corey, and Goody Good.
Then Sarah Cloyse asked for water, and sat down as one seized with a dying fainting fit; and several of the afflicted fell into fits, and some of them cried out,Oh! her spirit is gone to prison to her sister Nurse.
Elizabeth Proctor, you understand whereof you are charged, viz. to be guilty of sundry acts of witchcraft; what say you to it? Speak the truth. And so you that are afflicted, you must speak the truth, as you will answer it before God another day.
Mary Walcot, doth this woman hurt you? A. I never saw her so as to be hurt by her. Q. Mary Lewis, does she hurt you?—Her mouth was stopped. Q. Ann Putnam, does she hurt you?—She could not speak. Q. Abigail Williams, does she hurt you?—Her hand was thrust in her own mouth. Q. John (Indian), does this woman hurt you? A. This is the woman that came in her shift and choked me. Q. Did she ever bring the book? A. Yes Sir. Q. What to do? A. To write. Q. What, this woman? A. Yes Sir. Q. Are you sure of it? A. Yes Sir.
Again, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam were spoke to by the court, but neither of them could make any answer, by reason of dumbness or other fits.
What do you say, Goody Proctor, to these things? A. I take God in heaven to be my witness, that I know nothing of it, no more than the child unborn. Q. Ann Putnam, doth this woman hurt you? A. Yes Sir, a great many times.
Then the accused looked upon them and they fell into fits. Q. She does not bring the book to you, does she? A. Yes Sir, often, and saith she hath made her maid to set her hand to it. Q. Abigail Williams, does this woman hurt you? A. Yes Sir, often. Q. Does she bring the book to you? A. Yes. Q. What would she have you do with it? A. To write in it and I shall be well. Did not you, said Abigail, tell me, that your maid[51]had written? (Proctor) Dear child, it is not so. There is another judgment, dear child. Then Abigail and Ann had fits. By-and-by they cried out,Look you, there is Goody Proctor upon the beam. By-and-by both of them cried out of Goodman Proctor himself, and said he was a wizard. Immediately many, if not all of the bewitched had grievous fits.
Ann Putnam, who hurt these? A. Goodman Proctor and his wife too. Afterwards, some of the afflicted cried:There is Proctor going to take up Mrs. Pope’s feet; and her feet were immediately taken up. Q. What do you say, Goodman Proctor, to these things? A. I know not. I am innocent. Abigail Williams cried out,There is Goodman Proctor going to Mrs. Pope, and immediately said Pope fell into a fit. You see the Devil will deceive you; the children could see what you was going to do before the woman was hurt. I would advise you to repentance, for the Devil is about bringing you out.
Abigail Williams cried out again,There is Goodman Proctor going to hurt Goody Bibber; and immediately Goody Bibber fell into a fit. There was the like of Mary Walcot, and divers others.
Benjamin Gould gave in his testimony, that he had seen Goodman Corey and his wife, Proctor and his wife, Goody Cloyse, Goody Nurse, and Goody Griggs in his chamber last Thursday night. Elizabeth Hubbard was in a trance during the whole examination. During the examination of Elizabeth Proctor, Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam both made offer to strike at said Proctor; but when Abigail’s hand came near, it opened, whereas it was made up into a fist before, and came down exceeding lightly as it drew near to said Proctor, and at length with open and extended fingers touched Proctor’s hood very lightly. Immediately Abigail cried out,her fingers, her fingers, her fingers burned, and Ann Putnam took on most grievously of her head, and sunk down.[52]
Salem, April 11th, 1692.Mr. Samuel Parris was desired by the honourable Thomas Danforth deputy governor, and the council, to take in writing the aforesaid examinations, and accordingly took and delivered them in; and upon hearing the same, and seeing what was then seen, together with the charge of the afflicted persons, were by the advice of the Council all committed by us.
Facts often appear in their true light in after ages which had been seen in a false one by such as were upon the stage in the time of them. A strong bias is now evidently seen in favor of the accusers, and no measures were taken to discover the fraud. The same prejudice will appear through the whole process.
John the Indian, one of these accusers, was husband to Tituba the first witch complained of. She confessed and was committed to prison. Her husband, no doubt, was convinced he should stand a better chance among the afflicted than the accused. It is most probable some of the women acted from the same principle. As the afflicted increased, so did the accused, of course. Great pains were taken to bring some of them to confess; but in general the accused persisted in their innocency until the prisons were filled. At length the friends of some of the accused urged them to a confession, although they knew they were innocent, the magistrates declaring that confessing was the way to obtain mercy. The first confession, which remains upon the files, is of Deliverance Hobbs, May 11th, 1692, being in prison. She owned everything she was required to do. The confessors, like the accusers, multiplied, the witches having always company with them, who were immediately sent for and examined. No wonder if they were affrighted to the last degree; they owned whatever their friends and magistrates would have them. Thus more than an hundred women, many of them of the most sober, virtuous livers, some of them of very reputable families in the towns of Salem, Beverly, Andover, Billerica, Newbury, were apprehended and examined, and generally committed, although most of them who confessed, after three or four months imprisonment, were admitted to bail. These confessions were all very much of the same tenor. One of them may serve as a specimen.
8th Sept. ’92. The examination and confession of Mary Osgood, wifeof Capt. Osgood, of Andover, taken before John Hathorne, Esq. and other their Majesty’s justices.
She confesses, that about eleven years ago, when she was in a melancholy state and condition, she used to walk abroad in her orchard, and, upon a certain time, she saw the appearance of a cat at the end of the house, which yet she thought was a real cat. However, at that time it diverted her from praying to God, and instead thereof she prayed to the Devil; about which time she made a covenant with the Devil, who, as a black man, came to her and presented her a book, upon which she laid her finger and that left a red spot. And that upon her signing her book the devil told her he was her god, and that she should serve and worship him, and believes she consented to it. She says further, that about two years agone, she was carried through the air, in company with Deacon Frye’s wife, Ebenezer Baker’s wife, and Goody Tyler, to five-mile pond, where she was baptized by the Devil, who dipped her face in the water, and made her renounce her former baptism, and told her that she must be his, soul and body, forever, and that she must serve him, which she promised to do. She says, the renouncing her first baptism was after her dipping, and that she was transported back again through the air, in company with the fore-named persons, in the same manner as she went, and believes they were carried upon a pole. Q. How many persons were upon the pole? A. As I said before, viz. four persons and no more but whom she had named above. She confesses she has afflicted three persons, viz. John Sawdy, Martha Sprague and Rose Foster, and that she did it by pinching her bed clothes, and giving consent the Devil should do it in her shape, and that the Devil could not do it without her consent. She confesses the afflicting persons in the court, by the glance of her eye. She says, as she was coming down to Salem to be examined, she and the rest of the company with her stopped at Mr. Phillips’s to refresh themselves; and the afflicted persons, being behind them upon the road, came up just as she was mounting again, and were then afflicted, and cried out upon her, so that she was forced to stay until they were all passed; and said she only looked that way towards them.
Do you know the devil can[53]take the shape of an innocent person and afflict? A. I believe he cannot? Q. Who taught you this way of witchcraft? A. Satan, and that he promised her abundance of satisfaction and quietness in her future state, but never performed any thing; and that she has lived more miserably and more discontented since than ever before. She confesses further, that she herself, in company with Goody Parker, Goody Tyler and Goody Dean, had a meeting at Moses Tyler’s house, last Monday night, to afflict, and that she and Goody Dean carried the shape of Mr. Dean, the minister, between them, to make persons believe that Mr.Dean afflicted. Q. What hindered you from accomplishing what you intended? A. The Lord would not suffer it so to be, that the devil should afflict in an innocent person’s shape. Q. Have you been at any other witch meeting? A. I know nothing thereof, as I shall answer in the presence of God and his people; but said that the black man stood before her, and told her, that what she had confessed was a lie; notwithstanding, she said that what she had confessed was true, and thereto put her hand. Her husband being present, was asked if he judged his wife to be any way discomposed. He answered, that having lived with her so long, he doth not judge her to be any wise discomposed, but has cause to believe that what she has said is true.
When Mistress Osgood was first called, she afflicted Martha Sprague and Rose Foster by the glance of her eyes, and recovered them out of their fits by the touch of her hand. Mary Lacey and Betty Johnson and Hannah Post saw Mistress Osgood afflicting Sprague and Foster. The said Hannah Post and Mary Lacey and Betty Johnson, jun. and Rose Foster and Mary Richardson were afflicted by Mistress Osgood, in the time of her examination, and recovered by her touching of their hands.