the provisional government was still in operation--proceeded to
Salem village, with five other magistrates, and held a court in the
meeting-house. A great crowd was present. Parris acted at once as clerk
and accuser, producing the witnesses, and taking down the testimony. The
accused were held with their arms extended and hands open, lest by the
least motion of their fingers they might inflict torments on their victims,
who sometimes affected to be struck dumb, and at others to be knocked down
by the mere glance of an eye. They were haunted, they said, by the spectres
of the accused, who tendered them a book, and solicited them to subscribe a
league with the devil; and when they refused, would bite, pinch, scratch,
choke, burn, twist, prick, pull, and otherwise torment them. At the mere
sight of the accused brought into court, "the afflicted" would seem to be
seized with a fit of these torments, from which, however, they experienced
instant relief when the accused were compelled to touch them--infallible
proof to the minds of the gaping assembly that these apparent sufferings
were real and the accusations true. The theory was that the touch conveyed
back into the witch the malignant humors shot forth from her eyes; and
learned references were even made to Descartes, of whose new philosophy
some rumors had reached New England, in support of this theory.
In the examinations at Salem village meeting-house some very extraordinary
scenes occurred. "Look there!" cried one of the afflicted; "there is Goody
Procter on the beam!" This Goody Procter's husband, notwithstanding the
accusation against her, still took her side, and had attended her to the
court; in consequence of which act of fidelity some of "the afflicted"
began now to cry out that he too was a wizard. At the exclamation above
cited, "many, if not all, the bewitched had grievous fits."
Question by the Court: "Ann Putnam, who hurts you?"
Answer: "Goodman Procter, and his wife, too."
Then some of the afflicted cry out, "There is Procter going to take up Mrs.
Pope's feet!" and "immediately her feet are taken up."
Question by the Court: "What do you say, Goodman Procter, to these things?"
Answer: "I know not: I am innocent."
Abigail Williams, another of the afflicted, cries out, "There is Goodman
Procter going to Mrs. Pope!" and "immediately said Pope falls into a fit."
A magistrate to Procter: "You see the devil will deceive you; the
children," so all the afflicted were called, "could see what you were going
to do before the woman was hurt. I would advise you to repentance, for you
see the devil is bringing you out."
Abigail Williams cries out again, "There is Goodman Procter going to hurt
Goody Bibber!" and "immediately Goody Bibber falls into a fit." Abigail
Williams and Ann Putnam both "made offer to strike at Elizabeth Procter;
but when Abigail's hand came near, it opened, whereas it was made up into
a fist before, and came down exceedingly lightly as it drew near to said
Procter, and at length, with open and extended fingers, touched Procter's
hood very lightly; and immediately Abigail cries out, 'My fingers, my
fingers, my fingers burn!' and Ann Putnam takes on most grievously of her
head, and sinks down."
Such was the evidence upon which people were believed to be witches, and
committed to prison to be tried for their lives! Yet, let us not hurry too
much to triumph over the past. In these days of animal magnetism, have we
not ourselves seen imposture as gross, and even in respectable quarters
a headlong credulity just as precipitate? We must consider also that the
judgments of our ancestors were disturbed, not only by wonder, but by fear.
Encouraged by the ready belief of the magistrates and the public, "the
afflicted" went on enlarging the circle of their accusations, which
presently seemed to derive fresh corroboration from the confessions of some
of the accused. Tituba had been flogged into a confession; others yielded
to a pressure more stringent than blows. Weak women, astonished at the
charges and contortions of their accusers, assured that they were witches
beyond all doubt, and urged to confess as the only possible chance for
their lives, were easily prevailed upon to repeat any tales put into their
mouths: their journeys through the air on broomsticks to attend witch
sacraments--a sort of travesty on the Christian ordinance--at which the
devil appeared in the shape of a "small black man"; their signing the
devil's book, renouncing their former baptism, and being baptized anew
by the devil, who "dipped" them in "Wenham Pond," after the Anabaptist
fashion.
Called upon to tell who were present at these sacraments, the confessing
witches wound up with new accusations; and by the time Phipps arrived in
the colony, near a hundred persons were already in prison. The mischief was
not limited to Salem. An idea had been taken up that the bewitched could
explain the causes of sickness; and one of them, carried to Andover for
that purpose, had accused many persons of witchcraft, and thrown the whole
village into the greatest commotion. Some persons also had been accused in
Boston and other towns.
It was one of Governor Phipps' first official acts to order all the
prisoners into irons. This restraint upon their motions might impede them,
it was hoped, in tormenting the afflicted. Without waiting for the meeting
of the General Court, to whom that authority properly belonged, Phipps
hastened, by advice of his counsel, to organize a special court for the
trial of the witches. Stoughton, the Lieutenant-governor, was appointed
president; but his cold and hard temper, his theological education,
and unyielding bigotry were ill qualifications for such an office. His
associates, six in number, were chiefly Boston men, possessing a high
reputation for wisdom and piety, among them Richards, the late agent,
Wait Winthrop, brother of Fitz-John Winthrop, and grandson of the former
Governor, and Samuel Sewell, the two latter subsequently, in turn,
chief-justices of the province.
The new court, thus organized, proceeded to Salem, and commenced operations
by the trial of an old woman who had long enjoyed the reputation of being a
witch. Besides "spectral evidence," that is, the tales of the afflicted, a
jury of women, appointed to make an examination, found upon her a wart or
excrescence, adjudged to be "a devil's teat." A number of old stories were
also raked up of dead hens and foundered cattle and carts upset, ascribed
by the neighbors to her incantations. On this evidence she was brought in
guilty, and hanged a few days after, when the court took an adjournment to
the end of the month.
The first General Court under the new charter met meanwhile, and Increase
Mather, who had returned in company with Phipps, gave an account of his
agency. From a House not well pleased with the loss of the old charter he
obtained a reluctant vote of thanks, but he received no compensation for
four years' expenses, which had pressed very heavily upon his narrow
income. After passing a temporary act for continuing in force all the old
laws, among others the capital law against witchcraft, an adjournment was
had, without any objection or even reference, so far as appears, to the
special court for the trial of the witches, which surely would have raised
a great outcry had it been established for any unpopular purpose.
According to a favorite practice of the old Government, now put in use
for the last time, Phipps requested the advice of the elders as to the
proceedings against the witches. The reply, drawn up by the hand of Cotton
Mather, acknowledges with thankfulness "the success which the merciful God
has given to the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers
to defeat the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the
country, humbly praying that the discovery of those mysterious and
mischievous wickednesses may be perfected." It advises, however, "critical
and exquisite caution" in relying too much on "the devil's authority," that
is, on spectral evidence, or "apparent changes wrought in the afflicted
by the presence of the accused"; neither of which, in the opinion of the
ministers, could be trusted as infallible proof. Yet it was almost entirely
on this sort of evidence that all the subsequent convictions were had.
Stoughton, unfortunately, had espoused the opinion--certainly a plausible
one--that it was impossible for the devil to assume the appearance of an
innocent man, or for persons not witches to be spectrally seen at witches'
meetings; and some of the confessing witches were prompt to flatter the
chief justice's vanity by confirming a doctrine so apt for their purposes.
At the second session of the special court five women were tried and
convicted. The others were easily disposed of; but in the case of Rebecca
Nurse, one of Parris' church-members, a woman hitherto of unimpeachable
character, the jury at first gave a verdict of acquittal. At the
announcement of this verdict "the afflicted" raised a great clamor. The
"honored Court" called the jury's attention to an exclamation of the
prisoner during the trial, expressive of surprise at seeing among the
witnesses two of her late fellow-prisoners: "Why do these testify against
me? They used to come among us!" These two witnesses had turned confessors,
and these words were construed by the court as confirming their testimony
of having met the prisoner at witches' meetings. The unhappy woman,
partially deaf, listened to this colloquy in silence. Thus pressed by the
Court, and hearing no reply from the prisoner, the jury changed their
verdict and pronounced her guilty. The explanations subsequently offered in
her behalf were disregarded. The Governor, indeed, granted a reprieve, but
the Salem committee procured its recall, and the unhappy woman, taken in
chains to the meeting-house, was solemnly excommunicated, and presently
hanged with the others.
At the third session of the court six prisoners were tried and convicted,
all of whom were presently hanged except Elizabeth Procter, whose pregnancy
was pleaded in delay. Her true and faithful husband, in spite of a letter
to the Boston ministers, denouncing the falsehood of the witnesses,
complaining that confessions had been extorted by torture, and begging for
a trial at Boston or before other judges, was found guilty, and suffered
with the rest. Another of this unfortunate company was John Willard,
employed as an officer to arrest the accused, but whose imprudent
expression of some doubts on the subject had caused him to be accused also.
He had fled, but was pursued and taken, and was now tried and executed. His
behavior, and that of Procter, at the place of execution, made, however, a
deep impression on many minds.
A still more remarkable case was that of George Burroughs, a minister whom
the incursions of the Eastern Indians had lately driven from Saco back to
Salem village, where he had formerly preached, and where he now found among
his former parishioners enemies more implacable even than the Indians. It
was the misfortune of Burroughs to have many enemies, in part, perhaps,
by his own fault. Encouragement was thus found to accuse him. Some of
the witnesses had seen him at witches' meetings; others had seen the
apparitions of his dead wives, which accused him of cruelty. These
witnesses, with great symptoms of horror and alarm, even pretended to see
these dead wives again appearing to them in open court. Though small of
size, Burroughs was remarkably strong, instances of which were given
in proof that the devil helped him. Stoughton treated him with cruel
insolence, and did his best to confuse and confound him.
What insured his condemnation was a paper he handed to the jury, an extract
from some author, denying the possibility of witchcraft. Burroughs' speech
from the gallows affected many, especially the fluent fervency of his
prayers, concluding with the Lord's Prayer, which no witch, it was thought,
could repeat correctly. Several, indeed, had been already detected by some
slight error or mispronunciation in attempting it. The impression, however,
which Burroughs might have produced was neutralized by Cotton Mather, who
appeared on horseback among the crowd, and took occasion to remind the
people that Burroughs, though a preacher, was no "ordained" minister, and
that the devil would sometimes assume even the garb of an angel of light.
At a fourth session of the court six women were tried and found guilty. At
another session shortly after, eight women and one man were convicted, all
of whom received sentence of death. An old man of eighty, who refused to
plead, was pressed to death--a barbarous infliction prescribed by the
common law for such cases.
Ever since the trials began, it had been evident that confession was the
only avenue to safety. Several of those now found guilty confessed and were
reprieved; but Samuel Woodwell, having retracted his confession, along with
seven others who persisted in their innocence, was sent to execution. "The
afflicted" numbered by this time about fifty; fifty-five had confessed
themselves witches and turned accusers; twenty persons had already suffered
death; eight more were under sentence; the jails were full of prisoners,
and new accusations were added every day. Such was the state of things when
the court adjourned to the first Monday in November.
Cotton Mather employed this interval in preparing his _Wonders of the
Invisible World_, containing an exulting account of the late trials, giving
full credit to the statements of the afflicted and the confessors,
and vaunting the good effects of the late executions in "the strange
deliverance of some that had lain for many years in a most sad condition,
under they knew not what evil hand."
While the witch trials were going on, the Governor had hastened to
Pemaquid, and in accordance with instructions brought with him from
England, though at an expense to the province which caused loud complaints,
had built there a strong stone fort. Colonel Church had been employed,
in the mean time, with four hundred men, in scouring the shores of the
Penobscot and the banks of the Kennebec.
Notwithstanding some slight cautions about trusting too much to spectral
evidence, Mather's book, which professed to be published at the special
request of the Governor, was evidently intended to stimulate to further
proceedings. But, before its publication, the reign of terror had already
reached such a height as to commence working its own cure. The accusers,
grown bold with success, had begun to implicate persons whose character and
condition had seemed to place them beyond the possibility of assault. Even
"the generation of the children of God" were in danger. One of the Andover
ministers had been implicated; but two of the confessing witches came to
his rescue by declaring that they had surreptitiously carried his shape to
a witches' meeting, in order to create a belief that he was there. Hale,
minister of Beverly, had been very active against the witches; but when his
own wife was charged, he began to hesitate. A son of Governor Bradstreet,
a magistrate of Andover, having refused to issue any more warrants, was
himself accused, and his brother soon after, on the charge of bewitching a
dog. Both were obliged to fly for their lives. Several prisoners, by the
favor of friends, escaped to Rhode Island, but, finding themselves
in danger there, fled to New York, where Governor Fletcher gave them
protection. Their property was seized as forfeited by their flight. Lady
Phipps, applied to in her husband's absence on behalf of an unfortunate
prisoner, issued a warrant to the jailer in her own name, and had thus,
rather irregularly, procured his discharge. Some of the accusers, it is
said, began to throw out insinuations even against her.
The extraordinary proceedings on the commitments and trials; the
determination of the magistrates to overlook the most obvious falsehoods
and contradictions on the part of the afflicted and the confessors, under
pretence that the devil took away their memories and imposed upon their
brain, while yet reliance was placed on their testimony to convict the
accused; the partiality exhibited in omitting to take any notice of certain
accusations; the violent means employed to obtain confessions, amounting
sometimes to positive torture; the total disregard of retractions made
voluntarily, and even at the hazard of life--all these circumstances had
impressed the attention of the more rational part of the community; and, in
this crisis of danger and alarm, the meeting of the General Court was most
anxiously awaited.
When that body assembled, a remonstrance came in from Andover against the
condemnation of persons of good fame on the testimony of children and
others "under diabolical influences." What action was taken on this
remonstrance does not appear. The court was chiefly occupied in the passage
of a number of acts, embodying some of the chief points of the old civil
and criminal laws of the colony. The capital punishment of witchcraft was
specially provided for in the very terms of the English act of Parliament.
Heresy and blasphemy were also continued as capital offences. By the
organization of the Superior Court under the charter, the special
commission for the trial of witches was superseded. But of this Superior
Court Stoughton was appointed chief justice, and three of his four
colleagues had sat with him in the special court.
There is no evidence that these judges had undergone any change of opinion;
but when the new court proceeded to hold a special term at Salem for the
continuation of the witch trials a decided alteration in public feeling
became apparent. Six women of Andover renounced their confessions, and sent
in a memorial to that effect. Of fifty-six indictments laid before the
grand jury, only twenty-six were returned true bills. Of the persons tried,
three only were found guilty. Several others were acquitted, the first
instances of the sort since the trials began.
The court then proceeded to Charlestown, where many were in prison on the
same charge. The case of a woman who for twenty or thirty years had been
reputed a witch, was selected for trial. Many witnesses testified against
her; but the spectral evidence had fallen into total discredit, and was not
used. Though as strong a case was made out as any at Salem, the woman was
acquitted, with her daughter, granddaughter, and several others. News
presently came of a reprieve for those under sentence of death at Salem, at
which Stoughton was so enraged that he left the bench, exclaiming, "Who it
is that obstructs the course of justice I know not; the Lord be merciful to
the country!" nor did he again take his seat during that term.
At the first session of the Superior Court at Boston the grand jury, though
sent out to reconsider the matter, refused to find a bill even against a
confessing witch.
The idea was already prevalent that some great mistakes had been committed
at Salem. The reality of witchcraft was still insisted upon as zealously as
ever, but the impression was strong that the devil had used "the afflicted"
as his instruments to occasion the shedding of innocent blood. On behalf
of the ministers, Increase Mather came out with his _Cases of Conscience
concerning Witchcraft_, in which, while he argued with great learning that
spectral evidence was not infallible, and that the devil might assume the
shape of an innocent man, he yet strenuously maintained as sufficient proof
confession, or "the speaking such words or the doing such things as none
but such as have familiarity with the devil ever did or can do." As to such
as falsely confessed themselves witches, and were hanged in consequence,
Mather thought that was no more than they deserved.
King William's veto on the witchcraft act prevented any further trials;
and presently, by Phipps' order, all the prisoners were discharged. To a
similar veto Massachusetts owes it that heresy and blasphemy ceased to
appear as capital crimes on her statute-book.
The Mathers gave still further proof of faith unshaken by discovering an
afflicted damsel in Boston, whom they visited and prayed with, and of whose
case Cotton Mather wrote an account circulated in manuscript. This damsel,
however, had the discretion to accuse nobody, the spectres that beset her
being all veiled. Reason and common-sense at last found an advocate in
Robert Calef, a citizen of Boston, sneered at by Cotton Mather as "a weaver
who pretended to be a merchant." And afterward, when he grew more angry, as
"a coal sent from hell" to blacken his character--a man, however, of sound
intelligence and courageous spirit. Calef wrote an account, also handed
about in manuscript, of what had been said and done during a visitation
of the Mathers to this afflicted damsel, an exposure of her imposture
and their credulity, which so nettled Cotton Mather that he commenced a
prosecution for slander against Calef, which, however, he soon saw reason
to drop.
Calef then addressed a series of letters to Mather and the other Boston
ministers, in which he denied and ridiculed the reality of any such
compacts with the devil as were commonly believed in under the name of
witchcraft. The witchcraft spoken of in the Bible meant no more, he
maintained, than "hatred or opposition to the word and worship of God, and
seeking to seduce therefrom by some sign"--a definition which he had found
in some English writer on the subject, and which he fortified by divers
texts.
It was, perhaps, to furnish materials for a reply to Calef that a circular
from Harvard College, signed by Increase Mather as president, and by all
the neighboring ministers as fellows, invited reports of "apparitions,
possessions, enchantments, and all extraordinary things, wherein the
existence and agency of the invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated,"
to be used "as some fit assembly of ministers might direct." But the
"invisible world" was fast ceasing to be visible, and Cotton Mather laments
that in ten years scarce five returns were received to this circular.
Yet the idea of some supernatural visitation at Salem was but very slowly
relinquished, being still persisted in even by those penitent actors in the
scene who confessed and lamented their own delusion and blood-guiltiness.
Such were Sewell, one of the judges; Noyes, one of the most active
prosecutors; and several of the jurymen who had sat on the trials. The
witnesses upon whose testimony so many innocent persons had suffered were
never called to any account. When Calef's letters were presently published
in London, together with his account of the supposed witchcraft, the book
was burned in the college yard at Cambridge by order of Increase Mather.
The members of the Boston North Church came out also with a pamphlet in
defence of their pastors. Hale, minister of Beverly, in his _Modest Inquiry
into the Nature of Witchcraft_, and Cotton Mather, in his _Magnalia_,
though they admit there had been "a going too far" in the affair at Salem,
are yet still as strenuous as ever for the reality of witchcraft.
Nor were they without support from abroad. Dr. Watts, then one of the chief
leaders of the English Dissenters, wrote to Cotton Mather, "I am persuaded
there was much agency of the devil in those affairs, and perhaps there
were some real witches, too." Twenty years elapsed before the heirs of the
victims, and those who had been obliged to fly for their lives, obtained
some partial indemnity for their pecuniary losses. Stoughton and Cotton
Mather, though they never expressed the least regret or contrition for
their part in the affair, still maintained their places in the public
estimation. Just as the trials were concluded, Stoughton, though he held
the King's commission as lieutenant-governor, was chosen a counsellor--a
mark of confidence which the theocratic majority did not choose to extend
to several of the moderate party named in the original appointment--and
to this post he was annually reëlected as long as he lived; while Moody,
because he had favored the escape of some of the accused, found it
necessary to resign his pastorship of the First Church of Boston, and to
return again to Portsmouth.