OTHER PERSECUTIONS
The universality of the belief in witchcraft carried in its train
international belief in the efficacy of persecution as its cure. When
one nation led the others were bound to follow, and accordingly we
find that every European country--to say nothing of non-Christian
peoples--lent itself vigorously to this form of legalised murder.
But so similar are the details of these proceedings that witchcraft
might claim to have preceded Volapuk or Esperanto as an international
bond. Everywhere the persecution followed the same, or parallel lines,
differing only in minor national idiosyncrasies. So far as Catholic
countries were in question this was natural enough--seeing that all
alike drew their inspiration from the same source--Innocent VIII.'s
Bull; while the Protestants, however much they might object to Papal
persecution of their peculiar tenets, heartily agreed with both the
purpose and the method of those directed at the common enemy of all.
In France, as elsewhere, the seventeenth century saw the witch-fever
rise to its most extravagant height. Though it is difficult to
compare them in degree--where all alike rose to the highest level of
bloodthirstiness--the French may be said to have excelled their ancient
rivals in thoroughness. Thus the direction of the campaign was in the
direct control of either Church or State, rather than being submitted
to the ordinary process of the law; they were official rather than
local, and witchcraft a religious and political rather than a merely
criminal offence. Thus, in 1634, Urbain Grandier, who had satirised
Richelieu, was accused, at the Cardinal's direct instigation, of
practising the Black Art upon some nuns at Loudun, and was in due
course burned at the stake; and many similar cases are recorded. A
point in which the French practice differed from the English in the
matter of witch-finding was that, while in England the affair was
usually entrusted to the care of such comparatively humble persons as
Matthew Hopkins, the French Commissioner was an official of importance,
and usually, as in the case of Pierre de Lancre, of education. This
gentleman, sent as we have seen at the instance of the King, according
to his own account, by the Parliament of Bordeaux to investigate the
charges of wholesale witchcraft against the inhabitants of the Labourt
district in 1608, has himself provided us with illuminating insight
into such an official's frame of mind. This is shown even more clearly
in his introductory argument than in his book--already frequently
referred to--written to prove the inconstancy of devils and bad angels.
Towards this end he sets out to prove the inconstancy of the natives
of Labourt and their peculiar liability to Satan's snares. Then he
argues that Labourt must, on the face of it, breed an unsettled and
inconstant race, being both mountainous and situated on the borders
of three kingdoms, France, Spain, and Navarre. Its language, being
likewise varied--a mixture of French, Spanish, and Basque--is in itself
another powerful argument. Its inhabitants, again, are for the most
part sailors, when they might with better reason be farmers, because
they prefer the inconstant sea to the firm, unchanging land. Their
long absences, he finds, tends to make their wives unfaithful--another
powerful impetus towards witchcraft. Although the Commissioner--a man
of open mind--confesses that their dress is not indecent; he has grave
doubts about their dances, being not quiet and respectable, but rowdy
in the extreme, and accompanied upon the tambourine, an instrument
of baleful significance. They live very largely upon apples--which
may also account for their proneness to forbidden things, the Devil's
power over the apple having been recognised ever since the days of Eve.
De Lancre even puts forward the assertions of heretical Scottish and
English merchants, who have visited Bordeaux to buy wines, and have
there assured him that they have often seen large troops of dæmons
heading across the sea straight for Labourt. From all of which the
Commissioner concludes that there is scarcely a family in the district
but is more or less deeply involved in or connected with witchcraft and
its practices.
The same causes which rendered the French persecutions more severe
while they lasted, also brought it about that any relaxation of the
Governmental attitude diminished them to a greater extent than was the
case in England, where witchcraft had a more personal aspect. The armed
peasant, who, musket in hand, proved his possession of supernatural
powers by defeating the King's best troops led by a Marshall of France,
among the bare peaks of the Cevennes, in defence of his detestable
heresies, might look for nothing but ruthless extermination as a
wizard; but even Governments have human memories, and the humble old
woman muttering spells in obscure corners of the kingdom, was apt
to be overlooked. Sometimes, too, as the years passed, the Royal
Person actually interfered to shield the accused from less official
persecution. Thus, when in 1672, a number of shepherds were arrested
in Normandy and the Parliament of Rouen prepared for an investigation
similar to that previously held at Labourt, the King ordered all the
accused to be set at liberty, with salutary effect in dissipating the
increasing witch-fever. Some ten years later, however, a Royal edict
revived all previous ordinances against sorcery and divination. Many
such cases were tried before the "Chambre Ardente," the last being that
of a woman named Voisin, condemned for sorcery and poisoning in 1680.
The anti-sorcery laws were in force until the mid-eighteenth century,
while as proof of the persistence of the superstition we may again
quote the case of the Soubervies, in 1850, already referred to.
Germany--the land of sentiment, no less than of common sense--was not
different from her neighbours in her method of regarding the witch. The
German, though he protested against the methods of the Inquisition, as
applied to himself, could have no objection to its treatment of the
witch-question. Cases were sometimes heard in the civil court, but
were far more frequently left to the tender mercies of the Church. At
the end of the fifteenth century the Inquisitors Sprenger and Kramer
taught the whole duty of an Inquisitor in the "Malleus Maleficarum,"
and found many apt pupils throughout the Empire. Persecutions of
unprecedented fierceness broke out in many districts, one of the
most striking examples being that at Trier in the second half of the
sixteenth century. For many years there had been failure of crops
and increasing sterility throughout the land, attributed by many to
the increase of witchcraft and the malice of the Devil. In time, so
ferocious became the popular antipathy that scarcely any who fell under
suspicion had the remotest chance of escape. It was perhaps the most
democratic persecution recorded in history; neither rank nor wealth was
of the least avail in face of accusation. Canon Linden, an eye-witness,
relates that two Burgomasters, several councillors and associate
judges, canons of sundry collegiate churches, parish priests and rural
deans were among the victims. Dr. Dietrich Flade, judge of the secular
court and deputy governor of the city, strove to check the persecution
and fell a victim to it for his pains. He was accused, tortured into
confessing various crimes of sorcery, and burned at the stake in 1589.
A Dutch scholar, Cornelius Loos by name, a reputed disciple of Wierus
and tenant of a professorial chair at the Trier University, also
ventured to enter a protest against the prevalent madness. Failing in
his appeal to the authorities he wrote a book, in which his views were
set forth at length. It was seized while in the printers' hands and
its author cast into prison. He was, however, released in the spring
of 1593 upon uttering a solemn recantation--published in book form six
years later by Del Rio. Far from curing the barrenness of the land, the
persecution only increased it--and thus provided its own cure--dying
down at last when the general poverty prevented the necessary funds
being provided for its maintenance.
A pathetic incident is recorded of another formidable outburst of the
witch-mania--at Bamberg in 1628. The Burgomaster, Johannes Junius, was
among those put on trial. In the beginning he denied all the charges
against him, but being put to the torture, confessed that he had been
present at a witch gathering and a witch-dance and had desecrated the
Host. Such a confession, though it spared him further torture, did not,
of course, stay his execution. Some little time after, having partially
recovered from his first agonies, he was in great distress of mind as
to the opinion his dearly-loved daughter should hold of him after his
death. With sorely maimed hands he yet managed to scrawl a letter and
ensure its reaching her. In it he appeals in agony of heart that she
shall not believe the matter of his enforced confession: "Innocent
have I come into prison, innocent have I been tortured, and innocent
must I die.... I confessed only in order to escape the great anguish
and bitter torture, such as it was impossible for me longer to bear."
Unfortunately the torturers were never satisfied with a confession
unless it implicated other people as well, and the case of Junius
and some of his friends and neighbours who also suffered formed no
exception to the rule.
The Bamberg persecution was succeeded by one at Wurzburg in the
following year. Fortunately the noble Jesuit priest and poet, Friedrich
von Spee, was appointed confessor of those sentenced to death, and was
inspired to write, in 1631, his "Cautio Criminalis," which, published
anonymously, did much to stem the tide of persecution. "Incredible
among us Germans," he begins, "and especially (I blush to say it)
among Catholics, are the popular superstitions, envy, calumnies,
backbitings, insinuations and the like, which being neither punished by
the magistrates nor refuted by the pulpit, first stir up suspicion of
witchcraft. All the Divine judgments which God has threatened in Holy
Writ are now ascribed to witches. No longer do God or Nature aught, but
witches everything."
It was a long time, however, before such enlightened views could obtain
universal credence, and it was in Germany that the last European
execution for witchcraft took place, so lately as 1793.
The international epidemic did not spread to Sweden till the end of the
century, when it broke out, in more than usually eccentric form, in the
village of Mohra. It was chiefly remarkable for the number of children
concerned. "Four score and five persons, fifteen of them children, were
condemned, and most, if not all of them, were burnt and executed. There
were besides six-and-thirty children that ran the gauntlet and twenty
were whipt on the hands at the Church-door every Sunday for three weeks
together." The whole proceedings were, indeed, almost a children's
drama and no emanation of childish imagination but was eagerly
swallowed by a normally sober and sensible community. Most probably,
indeed, the whole affair had its foundation in some myth or folk-story
more or less popular in all the local nurseries. Indeed, were we of
the present generation to return to the earlier belief in lycanthropy
and the ceaseless malignancy of ubiquitous were-wolves, it is easily
within the bounds of possibility that "Red Riding Hood," a story which
quite conceivably owes its origin to the same superstition, might bring
about some similar panic. An imaginative child might easily mix up the
grandmother in the story with the wolf who devours her: might thus come
to the conclusion that his own grandmother occasionally masqueraded in
the form of a wolf: might in time convince himself that he had actually
seen her thus transmogrified, and might thus in time bring not only
his own venerable relative but those of half the other children in the
school that he attended under unpleasant suspicion and not improbably
to a more unpleasant death.
The mainstay of the Mohra panic was the sudden belief--propagated by
the children themselves--that some hundreds of them had been brought
under the power of the Devil by local witches. The whole community
took the alarm, the Government was appealed to, and a Royal Commission
embodied to investigate the charges--with sanguinary results. It
was declared that the witches instructed the children to go to the
cross-ways, and there to invoke the Devil, begging him to carry them to
the Blockula, the favourite local mountain meeting-place for Sabbaths.
Satan, in answering their prayers, appeared in many forms, the most
original being that of a man with a red beard, wearing a grey coat,
red and blue stockings, a high-crowned hat adorned with ribbons of
many colours, and preposterous garters. So attired he must have wanted
only a magic pipe to serve as double to the Pied Piper of Hamelin,
the Teutonic legend most nearly recalled by the whole circumstance.
He provided the children with mounts and anointed them with unguent
composed of the scrapings of altars and the filings of church-clocks.
Another account says that the witches accompanied the children, riding
with them to the Blockula on men's backs--the said men, upon arriving
there, being propped against the wall, fast asleep. Now and again they
preferred to ride upon posts, or goats transfixed upon spits, and they
flew through walls, chimneys, and windows without either injuring
themselves or breaking the glass and bricks.
The actual transportation of the children gave rise to many weighty
arguments. All the time they asserted they were at the Blockula, their
parents declared that they had held them asleep in their arms. It was
finally concluded that their nocturnal travels might be either in the
flesh or the spirit, according to circumstances. So firmly did many
parents credit their children's assertions that a local clergyman
determined to watch his little son throughout the night, holding him
tightly in his arms; but even this ocular demonstration did not serve
to convince the mother.
Upon the Blockula was declared to be a fine house, having a gate
painted in very gay colours. Within it were a large banqueting-hall
and other rooms. The food served at the banquets consisted of such
nourishing fare as coleworts, bacon, and bread, butter, milk and
cheese--all of them, be it noted, familiar to childish palates, as
was the feast of the Lancashire witches--quoted elsewhere--to the
"Informer." Those who attended the Blockula gave birth to sons and
daughters, who were married in their turn to each other, their children
being toads and serpents. They built houses, but so badly that the
walls fell upon them, making them black and blue; they were beaten,
abused, and laughed at--yet when on one occasion they thought the Devil
was dead, the place was filled with wailings and lamentations. As
usually happened in such persecutions, the bloodshed at last brought
people to their senses--perhaps the execution of fifteen children gave
their parents pause. At all events, the Commission was in due course
dissolved, and the persecution came to a sudden end, though prayers
continued to be offered weekly in the church against any other such
horrible visitation--as indeed they well might!
It is not my intention to give more than a general idea of the most
outstanding historic persecutions--for, as I have said, they differ
only in minor degrees in different times and places. There are,
however, yet one other group too striking to be ignored--those which
raged in the New England Colonies. It might have been supposed, by one
unconversant with human nature, that the memory of their own sufferings
would have softened the hearts of the colonists when they themselves
were in power. The reverse was the case; their enmity against their
former oppressors was diverted towards this new channel, gaining force
in the process. There is indeed some excuse to be found for their
mental attitude. Springing in the most cases from the humbler class,
they had many privations and sufferings to endure before they could
gain any respite in their newly-settled country to think of progressive
education. Their warfare against the Indians might well have given both
sides reason to think that the Devil was indeed arrayed upon the side
of their enemies--and in time the gloomy superstitions of the natives
served to buttress the imported beliefs of Europe.
From the beginning of the seventeenth century to the end the settlers
had been forced to devote most of their thoughts to means of
subsistence alone, and there had been no opportunity for speculative
thought to modify ideas which, standing still, became more and more
stereotyped. The precarious existence of the infant State also gave its
leaders every ground for taking the severest measures towards anything
considered to be dangerous to its welfare. As early as 1648, Margaret
Jones of Charlestone was accused of practising witchcraft. The charge
was "that she was found to have such a malignant touch as many persons,
men, women and children whom she stroked or touched in any affliction
or displeasure, were taken with deafness or vomiting, or other violent
pains or sickness." Governor Winthrop, in whose Journals the account is
found, also adds that "in prison there was seen in her arms a little
child which ran from her into another room, the officer following it,
it vanished."
Margaret Jones was found guilty of the crime of witchcraft, and was
hanged according to the law. Soon after her execution her husband
wished to go to Barbadoes in a vessel lying in Boston Harbour. He was
refused a passage as being the husband of a witch, and thereupon the
vessel began to roll as though it would turn over. Instead of the
phenomenon being attributed to the refusal to take an innocent man on
board, it was reported to the magistrate, and an officer was sent to
arrest Jones. On his exhibiting the warrant for the arrest, the vessel
instantly ceased to roll. Jones was thrown into prison, but there is no
evidence of his ever having been tried.
In 1655, Ann Hibbins was hanged at Boston for witchcraft; there were
witch-executions in different places at ever-decreasing intervals. One
of the most interesting cases of witchcraft was that of the Goodwin
family in 1688. A full account of this case is given by Cotton Mather,
"Minister of the Gospel," in a book which purported to contain "a
faithful account of many Wonderful and Surprising Things that have
befallen several Bewitched and Possessed Persons in New England." In
his own words, in 1689, "There dwells at this time in the South part of
Boston a sober and pious man, whose name is John Goodwin, whose Trade
is that of a Mason, and whose Wife (to whom a good Report gives a share
with him in all the characters of Virtue) has made him the Father of
six (now living) children. Of these children all but the eldest, who
works with his Father at his calling, and the youngest, who lives yet
upon the Breast of its mother, have laboured under the direful effects
of a (no less palpable than) stupendous WITCHCRAFT." After explaining
the godly and virtuous tendencies of the children and the excellence
of their upbringing and religious education, Mather says:--"Such
was the whole Temper and Courage of the children that there cannot
easily be anything more unreasonable than to imagine that a Design to
Dissemble could cause them to fall into any of their odd Fits."
In 1688 the eldest daughter, on examining the linen, found that some
of it was missing, and questioned the daughter of the washerwoman with
regard to it. The washerwoman--as might have happened in much later
times--used very bad language in her daughter's defence, whereupon
poor Miss Goodwin "became variously indisposed in her health, and was
visited with strange Fits, beyond those that attend an Epilepsy or
a Catalepsy, or those that they call the Diseases of Astonishment."
Shortly afterwards one of her sisters and two of her brothers were
seized in a like manner and "were all four tortured everywhere in a
manner so very grievous that it would have broken an heart of stone to
have seen their agonies." "Physicians were of no avail. Sometimes they
would be Deaf, sometimes Dumb, and sometimes Blind, and often all this
at once. One while their Tongues would be drawn down their throats,
another while they would be pulled out upon their chins to a prodigious
length. They would have their mouths opened into such wideness that
their Jaws went out of joint; and anon they would clap together with
a force like that of a Strong Spring-Lock. The same would happen to
their Shoulder-Blades, and their Elbows and Hand-wrists and several of
their Joints. They would at times ly in a benummed condition, and be
drawn together as those that are tyed Neck and Heels, and presently
be stretched out, yea, drawn Backwards to such a degree it was feared
the very skin of their Bellies would have crack'd." There were many
other symptoms which Mather relates with zealous satisfaction.--At
last the distracted father told the Magistrates of his suspicions
of the washerwoman Glover. On being examined, she gave such a poor
account of herself that she was committed to prison. It was found that
she could not say the Lord's Prayer, even when it was repeated to her
clause by clause, and when she was committed it was found that all
the children "had some present ease." The supposed witch was brought
to trial, but, being an Irishwoman, there were difficulties in her
understanding the questions, which told very badly against her. Orders
were given to search her house, and several small images--dolls,
perhaps--made of rags and stuffed with goat's-hair, were found. The
old woman then confessed "that her way to torment the objects of her
malice was by rubbing of her Finger with her spittle, and stroaking
of those little Images." When one of the images was brought to her,
she took it in her hand, and immediately one of the children fell into
fits before the whole assembly. Witnesses were easily found against
her, one of whom said that Glover had sometimes come down her chimney.
After her condemnation the worthy Mather visited her in prison, "but
she entertained me with nothing but Irish, which language I have not
Learning enough to understand without an Interpreter." On her way to
execution she declared that her death would not end the sufferings
of the children, as there were more in it besides herself; and so it
proved. The children would bark like dogs and purr like cats, and
they would fly like geese. "Such is Satanic perversity that if one
ordered them to Rub a clean table, they were able to do it without
any disturbance; if to rub a dirty Table, presumably they would,
with many Torments, be made uncapable." Mather relates that owing
to their Bewitchments, holy Books caused them horrible agonies. One
girl told him that if she went to read the Bible, her eyes would be
strangely twisted and blinded, and her neck presumably broken, but
also that if anyone else did read the Bible in the Room, though it
were wholly out of her sight, and without the least voice or noise of
it, she would be cast into very horrible agonies. "_A Popish Book_,"
says Mather, "she would endure very well and also books such as the
'Oxford Tests'"--Mather must be forgiven for being a partisan--but
"my grand-father Cotton's catechism called 'Milk for Babes' and the
Assemblie's Catechism would bring hideous convulsions on the child if
she look'd into them." With a certain unconscious jocularity, Mather
hopes that he has "not spoilt the credit of the books by telling how
much the Devil hated them."
At last Cotton Mather and some devout neighbours kept a day of prayer
on behalf of the afflicted children, and gradually "the liberty of the
children increased daily more and more, and their vexation abated by
degrees," though demons and spirits continued to trouble Boston for
some time after.
In 1692 Salem village was the scene of a fierce outbreak against
witchcraft, which lasted some 16 months. Cotton Mather attributes
it to the Indian "Paw-Maws," but Hutchinson, with his usual common
sense, probably hits upon at least one of the real causes. Mather had
published a book on witchcraft in 1689. It was strongly recommended in
England by Richard Baxter, who a short time later published his own
"Certainty of the World of Spirits." This contained a testimony to
Mather, and he, in his turn, caused it to be widely circulated in New
England. The witch epidemic at Salem occurred but a short time after
this and Hutchinson attributes it to "Mr. Baxter's book," and "his and
his father's" (_i.e._, Mather's book and that of his father) and the
false principles and frightful stories that "filled the people's mind
with great fears and dangerous notions."
The witchcraft scare in Salem began in the house of Mr. Parris,
minister of the place, and several other people soon began to act in
an unusual manner. "They crept into holes and under chairs and stools.
They used antick gestures and spake ridiculous speeches and fell into
fits. After some time and a day of prayer kept, the afflicted persons
named several that they said they saw in their fits afflicting them,
and in particular an Indian woman." The Indian woman, Tihuba was
her name, was deposed to have used charms, at the beginning of the
outbreak, for the discovery of the witches, but the fact of her being
an Indian would probably have been sufficient to cast suspicion upon
her. On being beaten and threatened by her master she confessed that
she was a witch, and said the Devil urged her to sign a book. Two other
women, Osborn and Good, were accused by the Parris children of having
bewitched them, and warrants were issued for their arrest. All three
were sent to the jail in Boston. Good's little daughter, Dorcas, aged
five, was called upon to testify against her mother, and her evidence
amounted only to this: "That her mother had 2 birds, one black and
one green, and these birds hurt the children and afflicted persons."
Sarah Good was sentenced to be hanged. The Rev. Mr. Voyes told her as
she stood on the scaffold, "You are a witch and you know you are a
witch." She replied, "You are a liar. I am no more a witch than you are
a wizard, and if you take my life God will give you blood to drink."
Sarah Osborn died in prison, and the bill of the Boston jailer for the
expenses of both women runs thus:--
£ s. d.
To chains for Sarah Good and
Sarah Osborn 14 0
To keeping Sarah Osborn from
the 7th March to 10th May,
when she died, being nine weeks
and two days 1 3 5
Tihuba was kept in prison for 13 months and was then sold to pay her
prison fees.
The arrest of these three women was followed almost immediately
by many more accusations. The arrival of Governor Phips in May,
armed with a charter which empowered the general court to erect and
constitute judicatories and courts of record, or other courts of which
the Governor was to appoint the judges, gave a great impetus to the
persecution. Finding the prison full of witches he gave orders for
their immediate trial. All through June and July the cases crowded one
upon another, and such was the pitch of superstitious terror to which
the people of Salem had arrived, that two dogs were put to death for
witchcraft. The cases of Martha and Giles Carey, and of Rebecca Nurse,
are so well-known that we will rather turn to the trial of Susanna
Martin, held in the court of Oyer and terminated at Salem on June 29th,
1692.
Cotton Mather relates of her that:--"Susanna Martin, pleading 'Not
Guilty' to the indictment of witchcraft brought in against her,
there were produced the evidences of many persons very sensibly and
grievously bewitched, who all complained of the prisoner at the bar as
the person they believed the cause of their miseries."
At the examination the cast of Susanna's eye was supposed to strike the
afflicted people to the ground whether they saw it or not.
_Magistrate._ Pray what ails these people?
_Martin._ I don't know.
_Mag._ But what do you think ails them?
_Martin._ I don't desire to spend my judgment upon it.
_Mag._ Don't you think they are bewitched?
_Martin._ No, I do not think they are.
_Mag._ Tell us your thoughts about them then.
_Martin._ No, my thoughts are my own when they are in; but when they
are out they are another's. Their master----
_Mag._ Their Master? Who do you think _is their Master_?
_Martin._ If they be dealing in the Black Art, you may know as well as
I.
_Mag._ Well. What have you done towards this?
_Martin._ Nothing at all.
_Mag._ Why, it is you or your appearance.
_Martin._ I cannot help it.
_Mag._ Is it not _your Master_? How comes your appearance to hurt
these?
_Martin._ How do I know? He that appeared in the shape of Samuel, a
glorified Saint, may appear in any-one's shape.
John Allen, of Salisbury, testified that he having refused because
of the weakness of his oxen to cart some staves at Susanna Martin's
request, she was angry and said, "It had been as good that he had, for
his oxen should never do him much more service." The witness answered
her, "Dost thou threaten me, thou old witch? I'll throw thee into the
brook!" to escape which she flew over the bridge and escaped. From
that time various misfortunes happened to his oxen and they ended by
swimming out into the sea. Of fourteen good oxen only one was saved,
the rest were cast up drowned in different places.
John Atkinson also testified to the bewitching of cattle by Martin,
and Bernard Peache said, "that Being in Bed, on a Lord's Day night, he
heard a Scrubbing at the Window, whereat he then saw Susanna Martin
come in and jumped down upon the floor." She took hold of witness's
feet and drew his body up into a heap. For two hours he could neither
speak nor stir, but at length he caught her hand and bit three of her
fingers to the bone. Whereupon she went down the stairs and out of the
door. Snow was lying on the ground and drops of blood were found upon
it, as also in a bucket on the left-hand side of the door. The marks
of her two feet were found just without the threshold, but there was
no sign of them any further off. Another accusation against Susanna
was that after a long walk her feet were dry when other people's would
have been wet. John Kembal had wished to buy a puppy of Martin, but as
she would not let him choose the one he wanted he bought one elsewhere.
"Whereupon Susanna Martin replied, 'If I live I'll give him puppies
enough.' Within a few days after this, Kembal coming out of the woods,
there arose a little cloud in the N.W. and Kembal immediately felt a
force upon him that made him not able to avoid running upon the stumps
of trees that were before him, albeit that he had a broad plain cartway
before him; but though he had his ax also upon his shoulder to endanger
him in his Falls, he could not forbear going out of his way to tumble
over them. When he came below the Meeting House there appeared unto him
a little thing like a Puppy of a Darkish colour, and it shot Backwards
and forwards between his Leggs. He had the courage to use all possible
Endeavours of cutting it with his ax; but he could not Hit it; the
Puppy gave a jump from him and went, as to him it seem'd, into the
ground. Going a little further, there appeared unto him a Black Puppy,
somewhat bigger than the first, but as Black as a Cole. Its motions
were quicker than those of his ax; it flew at his Belly and away; then
at his Throat and over his Shoulder one way and then over his Shoulder
another. His heart now began to fail him and he thought the Dog would
have tore his Throat out. But he recovered himself and called upon God
in his Distress; and naming the Name of Jesus Christ, it vanished away
at once. The Deponent spoke not one word of these accidents for fear
of affrighting his wife. But the next morning Edmund Eliot going into
Martin's house, this woman asked him where Kembal was? He Replyed, 'At
home abed for aught he knew.' She returned, 'They say he was frighted
last night.' Eliot asked, 'With what?' She answered, 'With Puppies.'
Eliot asked when she heard of it, for he had heard nothing of it; she
rejoined, 'about the Town'; altho' Kembal had mentioned the Matter to
no creature Living."
Susanna could do nothing against such evidence as this. She was found
"Guilty" and executed on July 19th.
In sixteen months nineteen persons were hanged, one (Giles Corry)
was pressed to death and eight more were condemned. More than fifty
confessed themselves to be witches, a hundred and fifty were in prison
and two hundred others were accused. But people were growing weary;
and it was thought time to cease the persecutions. By about April,
1693, all those imprisoned were set at liberty, and others who had
fled the country were allowed to return home. It is a striking comment
that Mr. Parris, in whose house the supposed witchcrafts had begun,
was accused by his congregation "that he hath been the beginner and
procurer of the sorest afflictions, not to this village only, but to
this whole country that did ever befall them," and he was dismissed.