discussed within its proper limits, in the foregoing work. But whoever
is interested in it as a chapter of history or an exhibition of
humanity may feel a curiosity, on some points, that reasonably demands
gratification. The questions will naturally arise, Who were the
earliest to extricate themselves and the public from the delusion? what
is known, beyond the facts mentioned in the progress of the foregoing
discussion, of the later fortunes of its prominent actors? what the
view taken in the retrospect by individuals and public bodies
implicated in the transaction? and what opinions on the general subject
have subsequently prevailed? To answer these questions is the design of
this Supplement.]
IT can hardly be said that there was any open and avowed opposition in
the community to the proceedings during their early progress. There is
some uncertainty and obscurity to what extent there was an unexpressed
dissent in the minds of particular private persons. On the general
subject of the existence and power of the Devil and his agency, more
or less, in influencing human and earthly affairs, it would be
difficult to prove that there was any considerable difference of
opinion.
The first undisguised and unequivocal opposition to the proceedings was
a remarkable document that has recently come to light. Among some
papers which have found their way to the custody of the Essex
Institute, is a letter, dated "Salisbury, Aug. 9, 1692," addressed "To
the worshipful Jonathan Corwin, Esq., these present at his house in
Salem." It is indorsed, "A letter[ii.448] to my grandfather, on account
of the condemnation of the witches." Its date shows that it was written
while the public infatuation and fury were at their height, and the
Court was sentencing to death and sending to the gallows its successive
cartloads. There is no injunction of secresy, and no shrinking from
responsibility. Although the name of the writer is not given in full,
he was evidently well known to Corwin, and had written to him before on
the subject. The messenger, in accordance with the superscription,
undoubtedly delivered it into the hands of the judge at his residence
on the corner of Essex and North Streets. The fact that Jonathan Corwin
preserved this document, and placed it in the permanent files of his
family papers, is pretty good proof that he appreciated the weight of
its arguments. It is not improbable that he expressed himself to that
effect to his brethren on the bench, and perhaps to others. What he
said, and the fact that he was holding such a correspondence, may have
reached the ears of the accusers, and led them to commence a movement
against him by crying out upon his mother-in-law.
The letter is a most able argument against the manner in which the
trials were conducted, and, by conclusive logic, overthrows the whole
fabric of the evidence on the strength of which the Court was
convicting and taking the lives of innocent persons. No such piece of
reasoning has come to us from that age. Its author must be acknowledged
to have been an expert in dialectic subtleties, and a pure reasoner of
unsurpassed acumen and force. It requires, but it will reward, the
closest attention and concentration of thought in following the threads
of the argument. It reaches its conclusions on a most difficult subject
with clearness and certainty. It achieves and realizes, in mere mental
processes, quantities, and forces, on the points at which it aims, what
is called demonstration in mathematics and geometry.
The writer does not discredit, but seems to have received, the then
prevalent doctrines relating to the personality, power, and attributes
of the Devil; and, from that standpoint, controverts and demolishes the
principles on which the Court was proceeding, in reference to the
"spectral evidence" and the credibility of the "afflicted children"
generally. The letter, and the formal argument appended to it, arrest
notice in one or two general aspects. There is an appearance of their
having proceeded from an elderly[ii.449] person, not at all from any
marks of infirmity of intellect, but rather from an air of wisdom and a
tone of authority which can only result from long experience and
observation. The circumstance that an amanuensis was employed, and the
author writes the initials of his signature only, strengthens this
impression. At the same time, there are indications of a free and
progressive spirit, more likely to have had force at an earlier period
of life. In some aspects, the document indicates a theological
education, and familiarity with matters that belong to the studies of a
minister; in others, it manifests habits of mind and modes of
expression and reasoning more natural to one accustomed to close legal
statements and deductions. If the production of a trained professional
man of either class, it would justly be regarded as remarkable. If its
author belonged to neither class, but was merely a local magistrate,
farmer, and militia officer, it becomes more than remarkable. There
must have been a high development among the founders of our villages,
when the laity could present examples of such a capacity to grasp the
most difficult subjects, and conduct such acute and abstruse
disquisitions. [See Appendix.]
The question as to the authorship of this paper may well excite
interest, involving, as it does, minute critical speculations. The
elements that enter into its solution illustrate the difficulties and
perplexities encompassing the study of local antiquities, and attempts
to determine the origin and bearings of old documents or to settle
minute points of history. The weight of evidence seems to indicate that
the document is attributable to Major Robert Pike, of Salisbury.
Whoever was its author did his duty nobly, and stands alone, above all
the scholars and educated men of the time, in bearing testimony openly,
bravely, in the very ears of the Court, against the disgraceful and
shocking course they were pursuing.[I]
[ii.450]
William Brattle, an eminent citizen and opulent merchant of Boston, and
a gentleman of education and uncommon abilities, wrote a letter to an
unknown correspondent of the clerical profes[ii.451]sion, in October,
1692. It is an able criticism upon the methods of procedure at the
trials, condemning them in the strongest language; but it was a
confidential communication, and not published[ii.452] until many years
afterwards. He says that "the witches' meetings, the Devil's baptisms
and mock sacraments, which the accusing and confessing witches oft
speak of, are nothing else but the effect of their fancy, depraved and
deluded by the Devil, and not a reality to be regarded or minded by any
wise man." He charges the judges with having taken testimony from the
Devil himself, through witnesses who swore to what they said the Devil
communicated to them, thus indirectly introducing the Devil as a
witness; and he clinches the accusation by quoting the judges
themselves, who, when the accusing and confessing witnesses
contradicted each other, got over the difficulty by saying that the
Devil, in such instances, took away the memory of some of them, for the
moment, obscuring their brains, and misleading them. He sums up this
part of his reasoning in these words: "If it be thus granted that the
Devil is able to represent false ideas to the imaginations of the
confessors, what man of sense will regard the confessions, or any of
the words of these confessors?" He says that he knows several persons
"about the Bay,"—men, for understanding, judgment, and piety, inferior
to few, if any, in New England,—that do utterly condemn the said
proceedings. He repudiates the idea that Salem was, in any sense,
exclusively responsible for the transaction; and affirms that "other
justices in the country, besides the Salem jus[ii.453]tices, have
issued out their warrants;" and states, that, of the eight "judges,
commissioned for this Court at Salem, five do belong to Suffolk County,
four of which five do belong to Boston, and therefore I see no reason
why Boston should talk of Salem as though their own judges had had no
hand in these proceedings in Salem."
There is one view of the subject, upon which Brattle presses with much
force and severity. There is ground to suspect, that the proceedings
were suffered to go on, after some of those appearing to countenance
them had ceased to have faith in the accusations. He charges, directly,
complicity in the escape of Mrs. Carey, Mrs. English, Captain Alden,
Hezekiah Usher, and others, upon the high officials; and says that
while the evidence, upon which so many had been imprisoned, sentenced,
and executed, bore against Mrs. Thacher, of Boston, she was never
proceeded against. "She was much complained of by the afflicted
persons, and yet the justices would not issue out their warrants to
apprehend" her and certain others; while at the very same time they
were issuing, upon no better or other grounds, warrants against so many
others. He charges the judges with this most criminal favoritism. The
facts hardly justify such an imputation upon the judges. They did not,
after the trials had begun, it is probable, ever issue warrants: that
was the function of magistrates. With the exception, perhaps, of
Corwin, I think there is no evidence of there having been any doubts or
misgivings on the bench. It is altogether too heavy a charge to bring,
without the strongest evidence, upon any one. To intimate that
officials, or any persons, who did not believe in the accusations,
connived at the escape of their friends and relatives, and at the same
time countenanced, pretended to believe, and gave deadly effect to them
when directed against others, is supposing a criminality and baseness
too great to be readily admitted. In that wild reign of the worst of
passions, this would have transcended them all in its iniquity. The
only excusable people at that time were those who honestly, and without
a doubt, believed in the guilt of the convicted. Those who had doubts,
and did not frankly and fearlessly express them, were the guilty ones.
On their hands is the stain of the innocent blood that was shed. It is
not probable, and is scarcely possible, that any considerable number
could be at once doubters and prosecutors. On this[ii.454] point,
Brattle must be understood to mean, not that judges, or others actively
engaged in the prosecutions, warded off proceedings against particular
friends or relatives from a principle of deliberate favoritism, but
that third parties, actuated by a sycophantic spirit, endeavored to
hush up or intercept complaints, when directed too near to the high
officials, or thought to gain their favor by aiding the escape of
persons in whom they were interested.
Brattle uses the same weapon which afterwards the opponents of Mr.
Parris, in his church at Salem Village, wielded with such decisive
effect against him and all who abetted him. It is much to be lamented,
that, instead of hiding it under a confidential letter, he did not at
the time openly bring it to bear in the most public and defiant manner.
One brave, strong voice, uttered in the face of the court and in the
congregations of the people, echoed from the corners of the streets,
and reaching the ears of the governor and magistrates, denouncing the
entire proceedings as the damnable crime of familiarity with evil
spirits, and sorcery of the blackest dye, might perhaps have recalled
the judges, the people, and the rulers to their senses. If the spirit
of the ancient prophets of God, of the Quakers of the preceding age, or
of true reformers of any age, had existed in any breast, the experiment
would have been tried. Brattle says,—
"I cannot but admire that any should go with their distempered friends
and relations to the afflicted children, to know what their distempered
friends ail, whether they are not bewitched, who it is that afflicts
them, and the like. It is true, I know no reason why these afflicted
may not be consulted as well as any other, if so be that it was only
their natural and ordinary knowledge that was had recourse to: but it
is not on this notion that these afflicted children are sought unto,
but as they have a supernatural knowledge; a knowledge which they
obtain by their holding correspondence with spectres or evil spirits,
as they themselves grant. This consulting of these afflicted children,
as abovesaid, seems to me to be a very gross evil, a real abomination,
not fit to be known in New England; and yet is a thing practised, not
only by _Tom_ and _John_,—I mean the rude and more ignorant sort,—but
by many who profess high, and pass among us for some of the better
sort. This is that which aggravates the evil, and makes it heinous and
tremendous; and yet this is not the worst of it,—for, as[ii.455] sure
as I now write to you, even some of our civil leaders and spiritual
teachers, who, I think, should punish and preach down such sorcery and
wickedness, do yet allow of, encourage, yea, and practise, this very
abomination. I know there are several worthy gentlemen in Salem who
account this practice as an abomination, have trembled to see the
methods of this nature which others have used, and have declared
themselves to think the practice to be very evil and corrupt. But all
avails little with the abettors of the said practice."
If Mr. Brattle and the "several worthy gentlemen" to whom he alludes,
instead of sitting in "trembling" silence, or whispering in private
their disapprobation, or writing letters under the injunction of
secrecy, had come boldly out, and denounced the whole thing, in a
spirit of true courage, meeting and defying the risk, and carrying the
war home, and promptly, upon the ministers, magistrates, and judges,
they might have succeeded, and exploded the delusion before it had
reached its fatal results.
He mentions, in the course of his letter, among those persons known by
him to disapprove of the proceedings,—
"The Hon. Simon Bradstreet, Esq. (our late governor), the Hon. Thomas
Danforth, Esq. (our late deputy-governor), the Rev. Mr. Increase
Mather, and the Rev. Mr. Samuel Willard. Major N. Saltonstall, Esq.,
who was one of the judges, has left the court, and is very much
dissatisfied with the proceedings of it. Excepting Mr. Hale, Mr. Noyes,
and Mr. Parris, the reverend elders, almost throughout the whole
country, are very much dissatisfied. Several of the late justices—viz.,
Thomas Graves, Esq.; N. Byfield, Esq.; Francis Foxcroft, Esq.—are much
dissatisfied; also several of the present justices, and, in particular,
some of the Boston justices, were resolved rather to throw up their
commissions than be active in disturbing the liberty of Their
Majesties' subjects merely on the accusations of these afflicted,
possessed children."
It is to be observed, that the dissatisfaction was with some of the
methods adopted in the proceedings, and not with the prosecutions
themselves. Increase Mather and Samuel Willard signed the paper
indorsing Deodat Lawson's famous sermon, which surely drove on the
prosecutions; and the former expressed, in print, his approbation of
his son Cotton's "Wonders of the Invisible World," in which he labors
to defend the witchcraft prosecutions, and to make it out that those
who suffered were "malefactors."[ii.456] Dr. Increase Mather is
understood to have countenanced the burning of Calef's book, some few
years afterwards, in the square of the public grounds of Harvard
College, of which institution he was then president. It cannot be
doubted, however, that both the elder Mather and Mr. Willard had
expressed, more or less distinctly, their disapprobation of some of the
details of the proceedings. It is honorable to their memories, and
shows that the former was not wholly blinded by parental weakness, but
willing to express his dissent, in some particulars, from the course of
his distinguished son, and that the latter had an independence of
character which enabled him to criticise and censure a court in which
three of his parishioners sat as judges.
Brattle relates a story which seems to indicate that Increase Mather
sometimes was unguarded enough to express himself with severity against
those who gave countenance to the proceedings. "A person from Boston,
of no small note, carried up his child to Salem, near twenty miles, on
purpose that he might consult the afflicted about his child, which
accordingly he did; and the afflicted told him that his child was
afflicted by Mrs. Carey and Mrs. Obinson." The "afflicted," in this and
some other instances, had struck too high. The magistrates in Boston
were unwilling to issue a warrant against Mrs. Obinson, and Mrs. Carey
had fled. All that the man got for his pains, in carrying his child to
Salem, was a hearty scolding from Increase Mather, who asked him
"whether there was not a God in Boston, that he should go to the Devil,
in Salem, for advice."
Bradstreet's great age prevented, it is to be supposed, his public
appearance in the affair; but his course in a case which occurred
twelve years before fully justifies confidence in the statement of
Brattle. The tradition has always prevailed, that he looked with
disapprobation upon the proceedings, from beginning to end. The course
of his sons, and the action taken against them, is quite decisive to
the point.
Facts have been stated, which show that Thomas Danforth, if he
disapproved of the proceedings at Salem, in October, must have
undergone a rapid change of sentiments. No irregularities,
improprieties, extravagances, or absurdities ever occurred in the
examinations or trials greater than he was fully responsible for in
April. Having, in the mean while, been superseded in office, he[ii.457]
had leisure, in his retirement, to think over the whole matter; and it
is satisfactory to find that he saw the error of the ways in which he
had gone himself, and led others.
The result of the inquiry on this point is, that, while some, outside
of the village, began early to doubt the propriety of the proceedings
in certain particulars, they failed, with the single exception of
Robert Pike, to make manly and seasonable resistance. He remonstrated
in a writing signed with his own initials, and while the executions
were going on. He sent it to one of the judges, and did not shrink from
having his action known. No other voice was raised, no one else
breasted the storm, while it lasted. The errors which led to the
delusion were not attacked from any quarter at any time during that
generation, and have remained lurking in many minds, in a greater or
less degree, to our day.
There were, however, three persons in Salem Village and its immediate
vicinity, who deserve to be for ever remembered in this connection.
They resisted the fanaticism at the beginning, and defied its wrath.
Joseph Putnam was a little more than twenty-two years of age. He
probably did not enter into the question of the doctrines then
maintained on such subjects, but was led by his natural sagacity and
independent spirit to the course he took. In opposition to both his
brothers and both his uncles, and all the rest of his powerful and
extensive family, he denounced the proceedings through and through. At
the very moment when the excitement was at its most terrible stage, and
Mr. Parris held the life of every one in his hands, Joseph Putnam
expressed his disapprobation of his conduct by carrying his infant
child to the church in Salem to be baptized. This was a public and most
significant act. For six months, he kept some one of his horses under
saddle night and day, without a moment's intermission of the
precaution; and he and his family were constantly armed. It was
understood, that, if any one attempted to arrest him, it would be at
the peril of life. If the marshal should approach with overwhelming
force, he would spring to his saddle, and bid defiance to pursuit. Such
a course as this, taken by one standing alone against the whole
community to which he belonged, shows a degree of courage, spirit, and
resolution, which cannot but be held in honor.[ii.458]
Martha Corey was an aged Christian professor, of eminently devout
habits and principles. It is, indeed, a strange fact, that, in her
humble home, surrounded, as it then was, by a wilderness, this
husbandman's wife should have reached a height so above and beyond her
age. But it is proved conclusively by the depositions adduced against
her, that her mind was wholly disenthralled from the errors of that
period. She utterly repudiated the doctrines of witchcraft, and
expressed herself freely and fearlessly against them. The prayer which
this woman made "upon the ladder," and which produced such an
impression on those who heard it, was undoubtedly expressive of
enlightened piety, worthy of being characterized as "eminent" in its
sentiments, and in its demonstration of an innocent heart and life.
The following paper, in the handwriting of Mr. Parris, is among the
court-files. It has not the ordinary form of a deposition, but somehow
was sworn to in Court:—
"The morning after the examination of Goody Nurse, Sam. Sibley met John
Procter about Mr. Phillips's, who called to said Sibley as he was going
to said Phillips's, and asked how the folks did at the village. He
answered, he heard they were very bad last night, but he had heard
nothing this morning. Procter replied, he was going to fetch home his
jade; he left her there last night, and had rather given forty
shillings than let her come up. Said Sibley asked why he talked so.
Procter replied, if they were let alone so, we should all be devils and
witches quickly; they should rather be had to the whipping-post; but he
would fetch his jade home, and thrash the Devil out of her,—and more to
the like purpose, crying, 'Hang them! hang them!'"
In another document, it is stated that Nathaniel Ingersoll and others
heard John Procter tell Joseph Pope, "that, if he had John Indian in
his custody, he would soon beat the Devil out of him."
The declarations thus ascribed to John Procter show that his views of
the subject were about right; and it will probably be generally
conceded, that the treatment he proposed for Mary Warren and "John
Indian," if dealt out to the "afflicted children" generally at the
outset, would have prevented all the mischief. A sound thrashing all
round, seasonably administered, would have reached the root of the
matter; and the story which has now been concluded of Salem witchcraft
would never have been told.