[50] This was a meeting of the council for a preliminary examination,
and not “a court” for the trial of the accused. Danforth, deputy
governor; Addington, secretary, and Russell, Hathorne, Appleton, Sewall
and Corwin, members of the council, were present. It was the only
examination that Samuel Sewall attended. On his return to Boston he
made this entry in his diary: “April 11, 1692. Went to Salem, where,
in the meeting house, the persons accused of witchcraft were examined;
was a very great assembly; ’twas awful to see how the afflicted were
agitated.” At a later date he inserted in the margin, “_Væ, væ, væ_.”
These words have been taken by a late writer “as expressions of much
sensibility at the extent to which he had been misled.” He did in later
years regret, and well he might, the course he took in the witchcraft
trials; but he never expressed, as the writer does, his disbelief in
the reality of diabolical agency as exhibited at that examination. The
occasion itself was mournful enough to draw forth these exclamations
from one holding his opinions; and hence they are explained without a
forced interpretation.