firmness, sympathy for suffering innocence, the diffusion of refined
sensibility, a discriminating discernment of what is really worthy of
commemoration among men, a rectified taste, a gen[ii.380]erous public
spirit, and gratitude for the light that surrounds and protects us
against error, folly, and fanaticism, shall demand the rearing of a
suitable monument to the memory of those who in 1692 preferred death to
a falsehood, the pedestal for the lofty column will be found ready,
reared by the Creator on a foundation that can never be shaken while
the globe endures, or worn away by the elements, man, or time—the brow
of Witch Hill. On no other spot could such a tribute be more worthily
bestowed, or more conspicuously displayed.
The effects of the delusion upon the country at large were very
disastrous. It cast its shadows over a broad surface, and they darkened
the condition of generations. The material interests of the people long
felt its blight. Breaking out at the opening of the season, it
interrupted the planting and cultivating of the grounds. It struck an
entire summer out of one year, and broke in upon another. The fields
were neglected; fences, roads, barns, and even the meeting-house, went
into disrepair. Burdens were accumulated upon the already over-taxed
resources of the people. An actual scarcity of provisions, amounting
almost to a famine, continued for some time to press upon families.
Farms were brought under mortgage or sacrificed, and large numbers of
the people were dispersed. One locality in the village, which was the
scene of this wild and tragic fanaticism, bears to this day the marks
of the blight then brought upon it. Although in the centre of a town
exceeding almost[ii.381] all others in its agricultural development and
thrift,—every acre elsewhere showing the touch of modern improvement
and culture,—the "old meeting-house road," from the crossing of the
Essex Railroad to the point where it meets the road leading north from
Tapleyville, has to-day a singular appearance of abandonment. The
Surveyor of Highways ignores it. The old, gray, moss-covered stone
walls are dilapidated, and thrown out of line. Not a house is on either
of its borders, and no gate opens or path leads to any. Neglect and
desertion brood over the contiguous grounds. Indeed, there is but one
house standing directly on the roadside until you reach the vicinity of
the site of the old meeting-house; and that is owned and occupied by a
family that bear the name and are the direct descendants of Rebecca
Nurse. On both sides there are the remains of cellars, which declare
that once it was lined by a considerable population. Along this road
crowds thronged in 1692, for weeks and months, to witness the
examinations.
The ruinous results were not confined to the village, but extended more
or less over the country generally. Excitement, wrought up to
consternation, spread everywhere. People left their business and
families, and came from distant points, to gratify their curiosity, and
enable themselves to form a judgment of the character of the phenomena
here exhibited. Strangers from all parts swelled the concourse,
gathered to behold the sufferings of "the afflicted" as manifested at
the examinations; and flocked to the surrounding[ii.382] eminences and
the grounds immediately in front of Witch Hill, to catch a view of the
convicts as they approached the place selected for their execution,
offered their dying prayers, and hung suspended high in air. Such
scenes always draw together great multitudes. None have possessed a
deeper, stronger, or stranger attraction; and never has the dread
spectacle been held out to view over a wider area, or from so
conspicuous a spot. The assembling of such multitudes so often, for
such a length of time, and from such remote quarters, must have been
accompanied and followed by wasteful, and in all respects deleterious,
effects. The continuous or frequently repeated sessions of the
magistrates, grand jury, and jury of trials; and the attendance of
witnesses summoned from other towns, or brought from beyond the
jurisdiction of the Province, and of families and parties interested
specially in the proceedings,—must have occasioned an extensive and
protracted interruption of the necessary industrial pursuits of
society, and heavily increased the public burdens.
The destruction dealt upon particular families extended to so many as
to constitute in the aggregate a vast, wide-spread calamity.[F]
[ii.383]
The facts that belong to the story of the witchcraft delusion of 1692,
or that may in any way explain or illustrate it, so far as they can be
gathered from the imperfect and scattered records and papers that have
come down to us, have now been laid before you. But there are one or
two inquiries that force themselves upon thoughtful minds, which demand
consideration before we close the subject.[ii.384]
What are we to think of those persons who commenced and continued the
accusations,—the "afflicted children" and their associates?
In some instances and to some extent, the steps they took and the
testimony they bore may be explained by referring to the mysterious
energies of the imagination, the power of enthusiasm, the influence of
sympathy, and the general prevalence of credulity,[ii.385] ignorance,
superstition, and fanaticism at the time; and it is not probable, that,
when they began, they had any idea of the tremendous length to which
they were finally led on.
It was perhaps their original design to gratify a love of notoriety or
of mischief by creating a sensation and excitement in their
neighborhood, or, at the worst, to wreak their vengeance upon one or
two individuals who had offended them. They soon, however, became
intoxicated by the terrible success of their imposture, and were swept
along by the frenzy they had occasioned. It would be much more
congenial with our feelings to believe, that these misguided and
wretched young persons early in the proceedings became themselves
victims of the delusion into which they plunged every one else. But we
are forbidden to form this charitable judgment by the manifestations of
art and contrivance, of deliberate cunning and cool malice, they
exhibited to the end. Once or twice they were caught in their own
snare; and nothing but the blindness of the bewildered community saved
them from disgraceful exposure and well-deserved punishment. They
appeared as the prosecutors of every poor creature that was tried, and
seemed ready to bear testimony against any one upon whom suspicion
might happen to fall. It is dreadful to reflect upon the enormity of
their wickedness, if they were conscious of imposture throughout. It
seems to transcend the capabilities of human crime. There is, perhaps,
a slumbering element in the heart of man,[ii.386] that sleeps for ever
in the bosom of the innocent and good, and requires the perpetration of
a great sin to wake it into action, but which, when once aroused,
impels the transgressor onward with increasing momentum, as the
descending ball is accelerated in its course. It may be that crime
begets an appetite for crime, which, like all other appetites, is not
quieted but inflamed by gratification.
Their precise moral condition, the degree of guilt to be ascribed, and
the sentence to be passed upon them, can only be determined by a
considerate review of all the circumstances and influences around them.
For a period embracing about two months, they had been in the habit of
meeting together, and spending the long winter evenings, at Mr.
Parris's house, practising the arts of fortune-telling, jugglery, and
magic. What they had heard in the traditions and fables of a credulous
and superstitious age,—stories handed down in the interior settlements,
circulated in companies gathered around the hearths of farmhouses,
indulging the excitements of terrified imaginations; filling each
other's minds with wondrous tales of second-sight, ghosts and spirits
from the unseen world, together with what the West-Indian or
South-American slaves could add,—was for a long time the food of their
fancies. They experimented continually upon what was the spiritualism
of their day, and grew familiar with the imagery and the exhibitions of
the marvellous. The prevalent notions concerning witch[ii.387]craft
operations and spectral manifestations came into full effect among
them. Living in the constant contemplation of such things, their minds
became inflamed and bewildered; and, at the same time, they grew expert
in practising and exhibiting the forms of pretended supernaturalism,
the conditions of diabolical distraction, and the terrors of
demonology. Apparitions rose before them, revealing the secrets of the
past and of the future. They beheld the present spectres of persons
then bodily far distant. They declared in language, fits, dreams, or
trance, the immediate operations upon themselves of the Devil, by the
agency of his confederates. Their sufferings, while thus under "an evil
hand," were dreadful to behold, and soon drew wondering and
horror-struck crowds around them.
At this point, if Mr. Parris, the ministers, and magistrates had done
their duty, the mischief might have been stopped. The girls ought to
have been rebuked for their dangerous and forbidden sorceries and
divinations, their meetings broken up, and all such tamperings with
alleged supernaturalism and spiritualism frowned down. Instead of this,
the neighboring ministers were summoned to meet at Mr. Parris's house
to witness the extraordinary doings of the girls, and all they did was
to indorse, and pray over, them. Countenance was thus given to their
pretensions, and the public confidence in the reality of their
statements established. Magistrates from the town, church-members,
leading people, and people of all sorts, flocked to witness the awful
power of Satan, as displayed in[ii.388] the tortures and contortions of
the "afflicted children;" who became objects of wonder, so far as their
feats were regarded, and of pity in view of their agonies and
convulsions.
The aspect of the evidence rather favors the supposition, that the
girls originally had no design of accusing, or bringing injury upon,
any one. But the ministers at Parris's house, physicians and others,
began the work of destruction by pronouncing the opinion that they were
bewitched. This carried with it, according to the received doctrine, a
conviction that there were witches about; for the Devil could not act
except through the instrumentality of beings in confederacy with him.
Immediately, the girls were beset by everybody to say who it was that
bewitched them. Yielding to this pressure, they first cried out upon
such persons as might have been most naturally suggested to them,—Sarah
Good, apparently without a regular home, and wandering with her
children from house to house for shelter and relief; Sarah Osburn, a
melancholy, broken-minded, bed-ridden person; and Tituba, a slave,
probably of mixed African and Indian blood. At the examination of these
persons, the girls were first brought before the public, and the awful
power in their hands revealed to them. The success with which they
acted their parts; the novelty of the scene; the ceremonials of the
occasion, the magistrates in their imposing dignity and authority, the
trappings of the marshal and his officers, the forms of proceeding,—all
which they had never seen[ii.389] before; the notice taken of them; the
importance attached to them; invested the affair with a strange
fascination in their eyes, and awakened a new class of sentiments and
ideas in their minds. A love of distinction and notoriety, and the
several passions that are gratified by the expression by others of
sympathy, wonder, and admiration, were brought into play. The fact that
all eyes were upon them, with the special notice of the magistrates,
and the entire confidence with which their statements were received,
flattered and beguiled them. A fearful responsibility had been assumed,
and they were irretrievably committed to their position. While they
adhered to that position, their power was irresistible, and they were
sure of the public sympathy and of being cherished by the public favor.
If they faltered, they would be the objects of universal execration and
of the severest penalties of law for the wrongs already done and the
falsehoods already sworn to. There was no retracing their steps; and
their only safety was in continuing the excitement they had raised. New
victims were constantly required to prolong the delusion, fresh fuel to
keep up the conflagration; and they went on to cry out upon others.
With the exception of two of their number, who appear to have indulged
spite against the families in which they were servants, there is no
evidence that they were actuated by private grievances or by
animosities personal to themselves. They were ready and sure to wreak
vengeance upon any who expressed doubts about the truth of
their[ii.390] testimony, or the propriety of the proceedings; but,
beyond this, they were very indifferent as to whom they should accuse.
They were willing, as to that matter, to follow the suggestions of
others, and availed themselves of all the gossip and slander and
unfriendly talk in their families that reached their ears. It was
found, that a hint, with a little information as to persons, places,
and circumstances, conveyed to them by those who had resentments and
grudges to gratify, would be sufficient for the purpose. There is
reason to fear, that there were some behind them, giving direction to
the accusations, and managing the frightful machinery, all the way
through. The persons who were apprehended had, to a considerable
extent, been obnoxious, and subject to prejudice, in connection with
quarrels and controversies related in Part I., vol. i. They were
"Topsfield men," or the opponents of Bayley or of Parris, or more or
less connected with some other feuds. As further proof that the girls
were under the guidance of older heads, it is obvious, that there was,
in the order of the proceedings, a skilful arrangement of times,
sequences, and concurrents, that cannot be ascribed to them. No
novelist or dramatist ever laid his plot deeper, distributed his
characters more artistically, or conducted more methodically the
progress of his story.
In the mean while, they were becoming every day more perfect in the
performance of their parts; and their imaginative powers, nervous
excitability, and flexibility and rapidity of muscular action, were
kept[ii.391] under constant stimulus, and attaining a higher
development. The effect of these things, so long continued in
connection with the perpetual pretence, becoming more or less imbued
with the character of belief, of their alliance and communion with
spiritual beings and manifestations, may have unsettled, to some
extent, their minds. Added to this, a sense of the horrid consequences
of their actions, accumulating with every pang they inflicted, the
innocent blood they were shedding, and the depths of ruin into which
they were sinking themselves and others, not only demoralized, but to
some extent, perhaps, crazed them. It is truly a marvel that their
physical constitutions did not break down under the exhausting
excitements, the contortions of frame, the force to which the bodily
functions were subjected in trances and fits, and the strain upon all
the vital energies, protracted through many months. The wonder,
however, would have been greater, if the mental and moral balance had
not thereby been disturbed.
Perpetual conversance with ideas of supernaturalism; daily and nightly
communications, whether in the form of conscious imposture or honest
delusion, with the spiritual world, continued through a great length of
time,—as much at least as the exclusive contemplation of any one idea
or class of ideas,—must be allowed to be unsalutary. Whatever keeps the
thoughts wholly apart from the objects of real and natural life, and
absorbs them in abstractions, cannot be favorable to the soundness of
the faculties or the tone of the[ii.392] mind. This must especially be
the effect, if the subjects thus monopolizing the attention partake of
the marvellous and mysterious. When these things are considered, and
the external circumstances of the occasion, the wild social excitement,
the consternation, confusion, and horror, that were all crowded and
heaped up and kept pressing upon the soul without intermission for
months, the wonder is, indeed, that not only the accusers, prosecutors,
and sufferers, but the whole people, did not lose their senses. Never
was the great boon of life, a sound mind in a sound body, more liable
to be snatched away from all parties. The depositions of Ann Putnam,
Sr., have a tinge of sadness;—a melancholy, sickly mania running
through them. Something of the kind is, perhaps, more or less
discernible in the depositions of others.
Let us, then, relieve our common nature from the load of the
imputation, that, in its normal state, it is capable of such
inconceivable wickedness, by giving to these wretched persons the
benefit of the supposition that they were more or less deranged. This
view renders the lesson they present more impressive and alarming. Sin
in all cases, when considered by a mind that surveys the whole field,
is itself insanity. In the case of these accusers, it was so great as
to prove, by its very monstrousness, that it had actually subverted
their nature and overthrown their reason. They followed their victims
to the gallows, and jeered, scoffed, insulted them in their dying
hours. Sarah Churchill, according to the testimony of Sarah
Inger[ii.393]soll, on one occasion came to herself, and manifested the
symptoms of a restored moral consciousness: but it was a temporary
gleam, a lucid interval; and she passed back into darkness, continuing,
as before, to revel in falsehood, and scatter destruction around her.
With this single exception, there is not the slightest appearance of
compunction or reflection among them. On the contrary, they seem to
have been in a frivolous, sportive, gay frame of thought and spirits.
There is, perhaps, in this view of their conduct and demeanor,
something to justify the belief that they were really demented. The
fact that a large amount of skilful art and adroit cunning was
displayed by them is not inconsistent with the supposition that they
had become partially insane; for such cunning and art are often
associated with insanity.
The quick wit and ready expedients of the "afflicted children" are very
remarkable. They were prompt with answers, if any attempted to
cross-examine them, extricated themselves most ingeniously if ever
brought into embarrassment, and eluded all efforts to entrap or expose
them. Among the papers is a deposition, the use of which at the trials
is not apparent. It does not purport to bear upon any particular case.
Joseph Hutchinson was a firm-minded man, of strong common sense. He
could not easily be deceived; and, although he took part in the
proceedings at the beginning, soon became opposed to them. It looks as
if, by close questions put to the child, Abigail Williams, on some
occasion of his casually meeting her, he had tried[ii.394] to expose
the falseness of her accusations, and that he was made to put the
conversation into the shape of a deposition. It is as follows:—
"The Deposition of Joseph Hutchinson, aged fifty-nine years, do testify
as followeth: "Abigail Williams, I have heard you speak often of a book
that has been offered to you. She said that there were two books: one
was a short, thick book; and the other was a long book. I asked her
what color the book was of. She said the books were as red as blood. I
asked her if she had seen the books opened. She said she had seen it
many times. I asked her if she did see any writing in the book. She
said there were many lines written; and, at the end of every line,
there was a seal. I asked her, who brought the book to her. She told me
that it was the black man. I asked her who the black man was. She told
me it was the Devil. I asked her if she was not afraid to see the
Devil. She said, at the first she was, and did go from him; but now she
was not afraid, but could talk with him as well as she could with me."
There is an air of ease and confidence in the answers of Abigail, which
illustrates the promptness of invention and assurance of their grounds
which the girls manifested on all occasions. They were never at a loss,
and challenged scrutiny. Hutchinson gained no advantage, and no one
else ever did, in an encounter with them.