'The whole of these proceedings exhibit melancholy proofs of the
effects of superstition in darkening the mind, and steeling the heart
against the dictates of humanity. Indeed nothing has ever been found
more vindictive and cruel than fanaticism, acting under the influence
of preternatural terror, and assuming to punish offences created by
its own gloomy reveries. Under such circumstances it becomes itself
the very demon whose agency it seeks to destroy. It loses sight of all
the common principles of reason and evidence. It sees nothing around
it but victims for sacrifice. It hears nothing but the voice of its
own vengeance. It believes nothing but what is monstrous and
incredible. It conjures up every phantom of superstition, and shapes
it to the living form of its own passions and frenzies. In short,
insanity could hardly devise more refinements in barbarity, or
profligacy execute them with more malignant coolness. In the wretched
butcheries of these times, (for so they in fact were,) in which law
and reason were equally set at defiance, we have shocking instances of
unnatural conduct. We find parents accusing their children, children
their parents, and wives their husbands, of a crime, which must bring
them to the scaffold. We find innocent persons, misled by the hope of
pardon, or wrought up to frenzy by the pretended sufferings of others,
freely accusing themselves of the same crime. We find gross perjury
practised to procure condemnations, sometimes for self protection, and
sometimes from utter recklessness of consequences. We find even
religion itself made an instrument of vengeance. We find ministers of
the gospel and judges of the land, stimulating the work of
persecution, until at last in its progress its desolations reached
their own firesides.'
There are not wanting, Hutchinson observes, those who are willing to
suppose the accusers to have been under bodily disorders, which
affected their imaginations. This is kind and charitable, but seems to
be winking the truth out of sight. A little attention must force
conviction, that the whole was a scene of fraud and imposture,
commenced by young girls, who at first, perhaps, thought of nothing
more than exciting an interest in their sufferings, and continued by
adult persons, who were afraid of being accused themselves. Rather
than confess their fraud, they permitted the lives of so many innocent
persons to be sacrificed. None of the pretended afflicted were ever
brought upon trial for their fraud; some of them proved profligate
persons, abandoned to all vice, others passed their days in obscurity
and contempt.
In December, 1696, there was a proclamation for a fast, in which there
was this clause, 'That God would shew us what we know not, and help us
wherein we have done amiss, referring to the late tragedy raised among
them by Satan and his instruments, through the awful judgment of God.'
On the day of the fast, at the South meeting-house in Boston, Judge
Sewall, who had sat on the bench at the trials, delivered in a paper
to be read publicly, and he stood up while it was reading. It
expressed in a very humble manner, that he was apprehensive he might
have fallen into some error in the trials at Salem, and praying that
the guilt of such miscarriages may not be imputed either to the
country in general, or to him or his family in particular, and asking
forgiveness of God and man. The Chief Justice, Mr Stoughton, being
informed of this action of one of his brethren, observed for himself,
that 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, yet
he saw no necessity of a public acknowledgment of it.
Twelve men who had served as jurors in court at Salem, in 1692,
published a recantation of their sentiments, and an apology for their
doings on the trials; stating that they were incapable of
understanding, nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the
powers of darkness, and the prince of the air, but for want of
knowledge and information from others, took up such evidence against
the accused as, on further consideration and better information, they
justly fear they have been instrumental with others, though
ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon themselves the guilt of
innocent blood, &c. They express a deep sense of sorrow for their
errors in acting on such evidence to the condemnation of persons,
declaring with deep humility that they were deluded and mistaken, for
which they are much distressed and disquieted in mind. They humbly beg
forgiveness of God, and praying that they may be considered candidly
and aright by the surviving sufferers, acknowledging themselves under
the power of strong and general delusion. They again ask forgiveness
of all whom they may have offended, declaring they would not do such
things again for the whole world.
As this great calamity began in the house of Mr Parris, and he had
been a witness and very zealous prosecutor of the supposed offenders,
many of his church withdrew from his communion, and in April, 1693,
they drew up articles against him. 'They charge the said Parris of
teaching such dangerous errors, and preaching such scandalous
immoralities as ought to discharge any man, though ever so gifted
otherwise, from the work of the ministry. Particularly, in his oath
against the lives of several, wherein he swears, that the prisoners
with their looks knock down those pretended sufferers. We humbly
conceive, that he who swears to more than he is certain of, is equally
guilty of perjury with him that swears to what is false.'
They were so settled in their aversion, that they continued their
persecutions for three or four years; and in July, 1697, they
presented a remonstrance to arbitration, in which they accuse him of
'believing the devil's accusations, and readily departing from all
charity to persons, though of blameless and godly lives, upon such
suggestions against them; his promoting such accusations, as also his
partiality in stifling the accusations of some, and vigilantly
promoting others. His applying to those who have a familiar spirit to
know who afflicted the people; which we consider as an implicit
denying the providence of God, which alone we believe can send
afflictions, or cause devils to afflict the people. By these practices
and principles, Mr Parris hath been the beginner and procurer of the
sorest afflictions, not to this village only, but this whole country,
that did ever befall them.' Mr Parris did at length acknowledge his
errors, but the people would not be satisfied till he was entirely
dismissed.
At the period when the prosecutions for witchcraft were conducted at
Salem, Sir William Phipps was governor of the Colony. He was a native
of New England, of obscure origin, and very illiterate. His title and
his affluence were acquired by fortuitous circumstances, not from any
meritorious or honorable achievements. Mr Phipps had, by some means,
obtained information that a Spanish ship loaded with gold and silver,
had been wrecked on the coast of La Plata, many years before, and he
resolved on a bold effort to possess himself of the booty. For the
purpose of procuring assistance in the enterprise, he performed a
voyage to England, where he obtained partners and associates, and from
thence he proceeded to La Plata, in 1687. He was so fortunate as to
discover the hulk, from which he recovered gold and silver to the
amount of £300,000, his own share being £16,000. Having returned to
England, and being introduced to men of rank and influence, he
received from King James the Second, the honor of knighthood, and was
commissioned as Governor of his native Colony. But, though a man of
piety and integrity, he was not qualified to support the dignity of
the office to which he had the honor of being promoted.
Sir William was a firm believer in witchcraft, and among the first
acts of his authority, was an order for chaining the witches; stupidly
believing that if the body was chained, the wicked spirit within could
exert no power. But before the close of the tragedies, in which his
excellency was so zealous an actor, his own wife, was by some of the
complainants, accused of being a witch; but through favor to the
governor's lady, she escaped without chains or halter.
It appears that Dr Cotton Mather was one of the leading champions in
the persecution of witches. In October, 1692, at the desire of the
governor, he published an account of the trials of seven of those who
had been condemned and executed, in which he states that the court
grounded their proceedings chiefly on the laws of England, and
precedents found in books from thence. In his preface he has this
passage. 'If in the midst of the many dissatisfactions among us, the
publication of these trials may promote a pious thankfulness unto God
for justice being so far executed among us, I shall rejoice that God
is glorified; and pray that no wrong steps of ours may ever sully any
of his glorious works.' But it should be remembered that no
condemnation can receive the sanction of justice nor the countenance
of Christians, unless the party is fairly convicted by full and
substantial human evidence. It is a most extraordinary circumstance
that the rulers and judges, and the eminent divines of that day,
should overlook the reasonable maxim in the Jewish constitution, that
_every word_ or thing admitted for evidence in the decision _shall be
established_ by the concurrence of what cometh from the mouth of two
or three credible witnesses. 'So you will not pollute with blood the
land in which you dwell.'--'And if a false witness rise up against a
man, and accuse him of any crime, the two men before whom is the
controversy, shall stand before the Lord, and before the priests, and
before the judges, who may be in those days. And when the judges have
made a strict examination, if the false witness hath testified
falsehoods, and risen up against his brother; you shall do to him as
he wickedly thought to do to his brother.'[C] It is melancholy to
reflect that no instance can be found on record of a false witness
against the innocent victims at Salem having been brought to merited
punishment.
[C] Numbers, xxxv. 30. Deut. xvii. 6, and xix. 15.
Dr Mather, in his work entitled 'Wonders of the Invisible World,'
produced an abridgment of the trials of the two women condemned by
Lord Hale, 1664, and also an abridgment of the rules and signs by
which witches are to be discovered, of which he says there are above
thirty. His production received the approbation of two of the judges
of the court, one of whom was the chief justice and lieutenant
governor. The author's father, Dr Increase Mather, also expressed his
coincidence in the same sentiments. The work is, nevertheless, a
singular and curious production; it evinces, most clearly, that the
reverend author, in the fervency of zeal, suffered his mind to be
deeply imbued with bigotry and depressing superstition. Dr Mather was
eminent for extensive knowledge and Christian piety; but foibles and
infirmities were his lot, and while his mind was enriched with
knowledge, his heart must have sickened for lack of wisdom. He
published 382 books and tracts on various subjects. In these he
displays wit and fancy, and advocates with zeal the cause of religion;
and although his style is singular and verbose, his works contain rich
and important matter for the historian and antiquary. It would be
unjust not to acknowledge the debt of gratitude due to Dr Mather for
the immeasurable benefits which our country and the world have enjoyed
from his efforts to introduce smallpox inoculation, in 1721. But the
work now in question affords a striking example of the imbecility of
mind in the absence of its glorious attributes. Sobriety of judgment
is seduced by folly, and moral dignity is degraded by the intrusion of
fictions of imagination, and the man becomes a dupe to his own
credulity. He adopted, in the fullest extent, the doctrine of demons,
and of supernatural compacts between Satan and witches, and was
fatally blinded against the most palpable impositions practised on
himself. But this distinguished divine was not singular in his
proneness to bigoted and dogmatical principles and doctrines; they
were in perfect coincidence with the habits of thinking in the times
in which he lived. His cotemporaries, who administered the affairs of
government, and those who were called to decide in their judicial
proceedings, had evidently imbibed the same gross absurdities; and
there is in our nature an unaccountable reluctance to discard errors,
however preposterous. His publication teems with romantic and
ludicrous stories, which he unwisely adduces for substantial facts. A
shrewd reply was made to it by R. Calef, a merchant of Boston, which
led to a controversy between the two authors, on the subject of their
inquiry.
The following is an abridged narrative of the trials of B. Bishop, S.
Martin, E. How, and M. Carryer, from Dr Mather's 'Wonders of the
Invisible World.'
'The court appeared to rely for evidence chiefly on the testimony of
the accusers, and the incidents exhibited by the experiment with the
parties in their presence on the trials. In all instances the presence
of the accused would produce wonderful effects on the persons of the
accusers. At a look, or cast of the eye, the accusers would instantly
fall down as if in a fit or swoon, and would throw themselves into
unnatural and painful postures, and by the application of the witches'
hand they were immediately restored.[D] Some complained that the shape
or spectre of B. Bishop, the prisoner on trial, pinched, choked, and
bit them. One testified, that the shape of the prisoner, one day, took
her from her wheel and carried her to the river side, threatening to
drown her if she would not sign the devil's book, and said she had
been the death of several persons whom she named. Another testified,
that there were apparitions or ghosts seen with the spectre of the
prisoner, crying out "You murdered us." There was testimony, likewise,
that a man striking once at a place where a bewitched person said the
shape of this Bishop stood, the bewitched cried out that he had torn
her gown, and the woman's gown was found afterwards to be torn in the
very place mentioned.
[D] Why not bewitch the magistrates as well as others, and save
the victims from death? If the witches, assisted by Satan, have
power over the laws of nature and the actions of men, how is it
that their enemies escape with impunity? If they possess the
power of raising storms and sinking ships at sea, why not
overwhelm both judge and jury in the ruins of falling houses and
make a mock of the chains and ropes employed for their
executions?
'One D. Hobbs having confessed herself to be a witch was now tormented
by the spectres for her confession, and this Bishop tempted her to
sign the book again, and to deny what she had confessed, and it was
the shape of this prisoner which whipped her with iron rods to compel
her thereto. To render it further unquestionable, that the prisoner at
the bar was the person truly charged in this witchcraft, there were
produced many evidences of other witchcrafts by her perpetrated. J.
Cook testified that, about five or six years ago, he was in his
chamber assaulted by the shape of this prisoner, which looked on him,
grinned at him, and very much hurt him with a blow on the side of his
head; and on the same day about noon, the same shape walked into his
room, and an apple strangely flew out of his hand into the lap of his
mother, six or eight feet from him. S. Gray testified, that about
fourteen years ago, he waked on a night and saw the room where he lay
full of light, and saw plainly a woman between the cradle and the
bed, which looked upon him. He rose, and it vanished, though the doors
were all fast. He went to bed, and the same woman again assaulted him.
The child in the cradle gave a great screech, and the woman
disappeared. It was long before the child could be quieted; though it
were a very likely, thriving child, yet from this time it pined away,
and after divers months died in a sad condition. He was satisfied that
it was the apparition of this Bishop which had thus troubled him. B.
Coman testified, that eight years ago, as he lay awake in his bed with
a light burning, he was annoyed with the apparition of this Bishop,
and of two more, who came and oppressed him, that he could neither
stir himself nor wake any one else; the said Bishop took him by the
throat and pulled him almost out of bed. The next night his kinsman
lodged with him, and as they were discoursing together, they were
visited by the same guests, and the kinsman was struck speechless and
unable to move hand or foot. He had laid his sword by him, which the
spectres did strive much to wrest from him, but he held it too fast
for them. S. Shattuck testified, that in the year 1680, this Bishop
often came to his house on frivolous and foolish errands. Presently,
whereupon, his eldest child began to droop exceedingly, and the
oftener she came to his house the worse grew the child. He would be
thrown and bruised against the stones by an invisible hand, and his
face knocked against the sides of the house in a miserable manner, and
the child's money, purse and all, would be unaccountably conveyed out
of a locked box, and never seen more. The child was taken with
terrible fits, and did nothing but cry and sleep for several months
together, and at length his understanding was utterly taken away.
Among other symptoms of enchantment upon him, one was, that there was
a board in the garden whereon he would walk, and all the invitations
in the world could never fetch him off. About seventeen or eighteen
years after, there came a stranger to Shattuck's house, who, seeing
the child, said this poor child is bewitched, and you have a neighbor
who is a witch. J. Louder testified, that having some little
controversy with Bishop about her fowls, he awaked in the night by
moonlight, and clearly saw the likeness of this woman grievously
oppressing him; she held him, unable to help himself, till near day.
He told her of this, but she utterly denied it, and threatened him
very much. Soon after this, being at home on a Lord's day, with the
doors shut, he saw a black pig approach him, but it soon vanished
away. Soon after he saw a black creature jump in at the window, and it
came and stood before him. The body was like that of a monkey, the
feet like a fowl's, but the face much like a man's. He was so
extremely affrighted, that he could not speak; he endeavored to clap
his hand upon it, but could feel no substance, and it jumped out of
the window again. He struck at it, but missed his blow, and broke his
stick; and the arm with which he struck was soon disabled. This same
creature appeared again, and was going to fly at him, whereat he cried
out, and it sprang back and flew over the apple tree, shaking many
apples off the tree in flying over. At its leap it flung dirt with its
feet against the stomach of the man, whereon he was then struck dumb,
and so continued for three days. William Stacy testified, that having
received some money of this Bishop for work done by him, he had gone
but about three rods from her, when looking for his money it was
unaccountably gone from him; and being about six rods from her, with a
small load in his cart, suddenly the off wheel sunk down into a hole
upon plain ground, so that he was forced to get help for the recovery
of the wheel; but in searching for the hole in the ground, which might
give him this disaster, there was none at all to be found. Soon after
this, as he was in a dark night going to his barn, he was very
suddenly lifted up from the ground and thrown against a stone wall;
and after that he was again hoisted up and thrown down a bank. At
another time this deponent passing by the said Bishop, his horse with
a small load, striving to draw, all his gears flew to pieces, and the
cart fell down, and the deponent going then to lift a bag of corn of
about two bushels, could not lift it with all his might. Many other
pranks of the prisoner this deponent was ready to testify. He verily
believed that the said Bishop was the instrument of his daughter
Priscilla's death. To crown all, says the Dr, J. Bly, and W. Bly,
testified, that being employed by said Bishop to take down the cellar
wall of the old house, wherein she formerly lived, they did, in holes
of the said wall, find several puppets made up of rags and hogs'
bristles, with headless pins in them, the points being outwards.
Whereof she could now give no account unto the court, that was
reasonable or tolerable. There might have been many more strange
things brought against this woman, but there was no need of them. But
there was one very strange thing more with which the court was
entertained. As this woman was under guard, passing by the great and
spacious meeting-house of Salem, she gave a look towards the house,
and immediately a demon, invisibly entering the meeting-house, tore
down a part of it; so that though there was no person to be seen
there, yet the people at the noise, running in, found a board which
was strongly fastened with several nails, transported into another
quarter of the house.'
It will doubtless be conceded, that if Bridget Bishop was actually
guilty of all the disasters above detailed, she was a proper subject
for the gallows.