Conflicting Currents in Boston.
All this time the under-current of opposition to these criminal
proceedings against the alleged witches, was growing stronger, at
Boston. The Reverend Samuel Willard and Joshua Moody both ministers of
undoubted orthodoxy from the Puritan stand-point, did not scruple to
visit the accused in the keeping of jailer Arnold, and sympathize openly
with them. Captain Alden and Master Philip English and his wife
especially, were persons of too great wealth and reputation not to have
many sympathizing friends.
On the other hand, the great majority of the Puritans, under the lead of
the Reverend Cotton Mather, and the two Salem ministers, Parris and
Noyes were determined that the prosecution should go on, until the
witches, those children of the Evil One, were thoroughly cast out; even
if half of their congregations should have to be hung by the other half.
At a recent trial in Salem, one of the "afflicted" had even gone so far
as to cry out against the Rev. Master Willard. But the Court, it seemed,
was not quite ready for that; for the girl was sent out of court, being
told that she must have mistaken the person. When this was reported to
Master Willard, it by no means tended to lessen his growing belief that
the prosecutions were inspired by evil spirits.
Of course in this condition of things, the position of the Governor, Sir
William Phips, became a matter of the first importance. As he owed his
office mainly to the influence of the Rev. Increase Mather, and sat
under the weekly ministrations of his learned son, Cotton Mather, the
witch prosecutors had a very great hold upon him. With a good natural
intellect, Sir William had received a very scanty education; and was
therefore much impressed by the prodigious attainments of such men as
the two Mathers. To differ with them on a theological matter seemed to
him rather presumptuous. If they did not know what was sound in
theology, and right in practise; why was there any use in having
ministers at all, or who could be expected to be certain of anything?
Then if Sir William turned to the law, he was met by an almost unanimous
array of lawyers and judges who endorsed the witchcraft prosecution.
Chief-Justice Stoughton, honest and learned Judge Sewall--and nearly
all the rest of the judiciary--were sure of the truth in this matter.
Not one magistrate could be found in the whole province, to decide as a
sensible English judge is reported by tradition to have done, in the
case of an old woman who at last acknowledged in the feebleness of her
confused intellect that she was a witch, and in the habit of riding
about on a broomstick: "Well, as I know of no law that forbids old women
riding about on broomsticks, if they fancy that mode of conveyance, you
are discharged." But there was not one magistrate at that time, wise or
learned enough to make such a sensible decision in the whole of New
England.
Thus with the almost unanimous bar, and the great preponderance of the
clergy, advising him to pursue a certain course, Sir William undoubtedly
would have followed it, had he not been a man whose sympathies naturally
were with sea-captains, military officers, and other men-of-the-world;
and, moreover, if he had not a wife, herself the daughter of a
sea-captain, who was an utter disbeliever in her accused friends being
witches, and who had moreover a very strong will of her own.
Of course if the Governor should come to Lady Mary's opinion, the
prosecution might as well be abandoned--for, with a stroke of his pen,
he could remit the sentences of all the convicted persons. Left to
himself and Lady Mary, he doubtless would have done this; but he wished
to continue in his office, and to be a successful Governor; and he knew
that to array himself against the prosecution and punishment of the
alleged witches was to displease the great majority of the people of the
province; including, as I have shown, the most influential persons. In
fact, it was simply to retire from his government in disgrace.
All this the Reverend Cotton Mather represented to Sir William, with
much else of a less worldly, but no doubt still more effective
character, based upon various passages of the old Testament rather than
upon anything corresponding to them in the New.
And so the prosecutions and convictions went on; but the further
executions waited upon the Governor's decision.