Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather Part 8

"But, that I may be the more capable to a.s.sist, in lifting up a standard against the infernal enemy, I must renew my most IMPORTUNATE REQUEST, that would please quickly to perform, what you kindly promised, of giving me a narrative of the evidence given in at the trials of half a dozen, or if you please, a dozen, of the princ.i.p.al witches, that have been condemned. I know 'twill cost you some time; but when you are sensible of the benefit that will follow, I know you will not think much of that cost, and my own willingness to expose myself unto the utmost for the defence of my friends with you, makes me presume to plead something of merit, to be considered.

"I shall be content, if you draw up the desired narrative by way of letter to me, or at least, let it not come without a letter, wherein you shall, if you can, intimate over again, what you have sometimes told me, of the awe, which is upon the hearts of your Juries, with * * * unto the validity of the spectral evidences.

"Please also to * * * some of your observations about the confessors, and the credibility of what they a.s.sert; or about things evidently preternatural in the witchcrafts, and whatever else you may account an entertainment, for an inquisitive person, that entirely loves you, and Salem. Nay, though I will never lay aside the character which I mentioned in my last words, yet, I am willing that, when you write, you should imagine me as obstinate a Sadducee and witch-advocate, as any among us: address me as one that believed nothing reasonable; and when you have so knocked me down, in a spectre so unlike me, you will enable me to box it about, among my neighbors, till it come, I know not where at last.

"But a.s.sure yourself, as I shall not wittingly make what you write prejudicial to any worthy design, which those two excellent persons, Mr. Hale and Mr. Noyes, may have in hand, so you shall find that I shall be,

"Sir, your grateful friend, C. MATHER."

"P. S. That which very much strengthens the charms of the request, which this letter makes you, is that his Excellency, the Governor, laid his positive commands upon me to desire this favor of you; and the truth is, there are some of his circ.u.mstances with reference to this affair, which I need not mention, that call for the expediting of your kindness, _kindness_, I say, for such it will be esteemed, as well by him, as by your servant, C. MATHER."

The point, on which the Reviewer raises an objection to the statement in my book, in reference to this letter, is, as to the antecedent of "it,"

in the expression, "box it about." The opinion I gave was that it referred to the doc.u.ment requested to be sent by Sewall. The Reviewer says it refers to "a Spectre," in the preceding line, or as he expresses it, "the fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism." Every one can judge for himself on inspection of the pa.s.sage. After all, it is a mere quibbling about words, for the meaning remains substantially the same. Indeed, that which he gives is more to my purpose. Let it go, that Mather desired the doc.u.ment, and intended to use it, to break down all objectors to the work then doing in Salem. Whoever disapproved of such proceedings, or intimated any doubt concerning the popular notions about witchcraft, were called "Sadducees and witch-advocates." These terms were used by Mather, on all occasions, as marks of opprobrium, to stigmatize and make odious such persons. If they could once be silenced, witchcraft demonstrations and prosecutions might be continued, without impediment or restraint, until they should "come," no one could tell "where, at last." "The fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism" was to be the trophy of Mather's victory; and Sewall's letter was to be the weapon to lay it low.

Each of the paragraphs of this letter demonstrates the position Mather occupied, and the part he had taken, in the transactions at Salem. Mr.

Hale had acted, up to this time, earnestly with Noyes and Parris; and the letter shows that Mather had the sympathies and the interests of a cooperator with them, and in their "designs." Every person of honorable feelings can judge for himself of the suggestion to Sewall, to be a partner in a false representation to the public, by addressing Mather "in a spectre so unlike" him--that is, in a character which he, Sewall, knew, as well as Mather, to be wholly contrary to the truth. Blinded, active, and vehement, as the Clerk of the Court had been, in carrying on the prosecutions, it is gratifying to find reason to conclude that he was not so utterly lost to self-respect as to comply with the jesuitical request, or lend himself to any such false connivance.

The letter was written at the height of the fury of the delusion, immediately upon a Session of the Court, at which all tried had been condemned, eight of whom suffered two days after its date. Any number of others were under sentence of death. The letter was a renewal of "a most importunate request."

I cite it, here, at this stage of the examination of the subject, particularly on account of the postscript. Every one has been led to suppose that "His Excellency, the Governor," who had laid such "positive commands" upon Mather to obtain the desired doc.u.ment from Sewall, was Sir William Phips. The avowed purpose of Mather, in seeking it, was to put it into circulation--to "box it about"--thereby to produce an effect, to the putting down of Sadduceeism, or all further opposition to witchcraft prosecutions. He, undoubtedly, contemplated making it a part of his book, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, printed, the next year, in London. The statement made by him always was, that he wrote that book in compliance with orders laid upon him to that effect by "His Excellency, the Governor." The imprimatur, in conspicuous type, in front of one of the editions of the book, is "Published by the special command of his Excellency, the Governor of the Province of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in New England."

On the sixteenth of September, Sir William Phips had notified the Council of his going to the eastward; and that body was adjourned to the fourteenth of October. From his habitual promptness, and the pressing exigency of affairs in the neighborhood of the Kennebec, it is to be presumed that he left immediately; and, as it was expected to be a longer absence than usual, it can hardly be doubted that, as on the first of August, he formally, by a written instrument, pa.s.sed the Government over to Stoughton. At any rate, while he was away from his Province proper, the Deputy necessarily acceded to the Executive functions.

In the Sewall Diary we find the following: "SEPT. 21. A pet.i.tion is sent to Town, in behalf of Dorcas h.o.a.r, who now confesses. Accordingly, an order is sent to the Sheriff to forbear her execution, notwithstanding her being in the Warrant to die to-morrow. This is the first condemned person who has confessed."

The granting of this reprieve was an executive act, that would seem to have belonged to the functions of the person filling the office of Governor; and Phips being absent, it could only have been performed by Stoughton, and shows, therefore, that he, at that time, acted as Governor. As such, he was, by custom and etiquette, addressed--"His Excellency." The next day, eight were executed, four of them having been sentenced on the ninth of September, and four on the seventeenth, which was on Sat.u.r.day. The whole eight were included, as is to be inferred from the foregoing entry, and is otherwise known, in the same Warrant, which could not, therefore, have been made out before the nineteenth.

The next day, Mather wrote the letter to Sewall; and the language, in its Postscript, may have referred to Stoughton; particularly this clause: "There are some of his circ.u.mstances, with reference to this affair." As Phips had, from the first, left all the proceedings with the Chief-justice, who had presided at all the trials, and was, by universal acknowledgment, especially responsible for all the proceedings and results, the words of Mather are much more applicable to Stoughton than to Phips.

Upon receiving these "importunate requests" from Mather, proposing such a form of reply, to be used in such a way, Sewall thought it best to adopt the course indicated in the following entry, in the Diary of his brother, the Judge: "THURSDAY, SEPT. 22, 1692. William Stoughton, Esq., John Hathorne, Esq., Mr. Cotton Mather, and Capt. John Higginson, with my brother St. were at our house, speaking about publis.h.i.+ng some trials of the witches."

It appears that Stephen Sewall, instead of answering Mather's letter in writing, went directly to Boston, accompanied by Hathorne and Higginson, and met Mather and Stoughton at the house of the Judge. No other Minister was present; and Judge Sewall was not Mather's paris.h.i.+oner.

The whole matter was there talked over. The project Mather had been contemplating was matured; and arrangements made with Stephen Sewall, who had them in his custody, to send to Mather the Records of the trials; and, thus provided, he proceeded, without further delay, in obedience to the commands laid upon him by "his Excellency," to prepare for the press, _The Wonders of the Invisible World_, which was designed to send to the shades, "Sadduceeism," to extirpate "witch-advocates,"

and to leave the course clear for the indefinite continuance of the prosecutions, until, as Stoughton expressed it, "the land was cleared"

of all witches.

The presence of the Deputy-governor, at this private conference, shows the prominent part he bore in the movement, and corroborates, what is inferrible from the dates, that he was "His Excellency, the Governor,"

referred to in the doc.u.ments connected with this transaction. It is observable, by the way, that the references are always to the official character and t.i.tle, and not to the name of the person, whether Phips or Stoughton.

I now proceed to examine the book, written and brought forward, under these circ.u.mstances and for this purpose. It contains much of which I shall avail myself, to ill.u.s.trate the position and the views of Mather, at the time. The length to which this article is extended, by the method I have adopted of quoting doc.u.ments so fully, is regretted; but it seems necessary, in order to meet the interest that has been awakened in the subject, by the article in the _North American Review_, to make the enquiry as thorough as possible.

Only a part of the work is devoted to the main purpose for which it was ostensibly and avowedly designed. That I shall first notice. It is introduced as follows: "I shall no longer detain my reader from his expected entertainment, in a brief account of the Trials which have pa.s.sed upon some of the Malefactors lately executed at Salem, for the witchcrafts whereof they stood convicted. For my own part, I was not present at any of them; nor ever had I any personal prejudice at the persons thus brought upon the Stage; much less, at the surviving relations of those persons, with and for whom I would be as hearty a mourner, as any man living in the world: _The Lord comfort them!_ But having received a command so to do, I can do no other than shortly relate the chief _Matters of Fact_, which occurred in the trials of some that were executed; in an abridgement collected out of the _Court Papers_, on this occasion put into my hands. You are to take the _Truth_, just as it was."--_Wonders of the Invisible World, p. 54._

He singles out five cases and declares: "I report matters not as an _Advocate_, but as an _Historian_."

After further prefacing his account, by relating, _A modern instance of Witches, discovered and condemned, in a trial before that celebrated Judge, Sir Matthew Hale_, he comes to the trial of George Burroughs. He spreads out, without reserve, the spectral evidence, given in this as in all the cases, and without the least intimation of objection from himself, or any one else, to its being _admitted_, as, "with other things to render it credible" enough for the purpose of conviction. Any one reading his account, and at the same time examining the doc.u.ments on file, will be able to appreciate how far he was justified in saying, that he reported it in the spirit of an historian rather than an advocate.

Let, us, first, see what the "Court papers, put into his hands,"

amounted to; as we find them in the files.

"The Deposition of Simon Willard, aged about 42 years, saith: I being at Saco, in the year 1689, some in Capt. Ed. Sargent's garrison were speaking of Mr. George Burroughs his great strength, saying he could take a barrel of mola.s.ses out of a canoe or boat, alone; and that he could take it in his hands, or arms, out of the canoe or boat, and carry it, and set it on the sh.o.r.e: and Mr. Burroughs being there, said that he had carried one barrel of mola.s.ses or cider out of a canoe, that had like to have done him a displeasure; said Mr. Burroughs intimated, as if he did not want strength to do it, but the disadvantage of the sh.o.r.e was such, that, his foot slipping in the sand, he had liked to have strained his leg."

Willard was uncertain whether Burroughs had stated it to be mola.s.ses or cider. John Brown testified about a "barrel of cider." Burroughs denied the statement, as to the mola.s.ses, thereby impliedly admitting that he had so carried a barrel of cider.

Samuel Webber testified that, seven or eight years before, Burroughs told him that, by putting his fingers into the bung of a barrel of mola.s.ses, he had lifted it up, and "carried it round him, and set it down again."

Parris, in his notes of this trial, not in the files, says that "_Capt.

Wormwood_ testified about the gun and the mola.s.ses." But the papers on file give the name as "_Capt. W^m Wormall_," and represents that he, referring to the gun, "swore" that he "saw George Burroughs raise it from the ground." His testimony, with this exception, was merely confirmatory, in general terms, of another deposition of Simon Willard, to the effect, that Burroughs, in explanation of one of the stories about his great strength, showed him how he held a gun of "about seven foot barrel," by taking it "in his hand behind the lock," and holding it out; Willard further stating that he did not see him "hold it out then,"

and that he, Willard, so taking the gun with both hands, could not hold it out long enough to take sight. The testimony, throughout, was thus loose and conflicting, almost wholly mere hearsay, of no value, logically or legally. All that was really proved being what Burroughs admitted, that is, as to the cider.

But, in the statement made by him to Willard, at Saco, as deposed by the latter, he mentioned a circ.u.mstance, namely, the straining of his leg, which, if not true, could easily have been disproved, that demonstrated the effort to have been made, and the feat accomplished, by the natural exercise of muscular power. If preternatural force had aided him, it would have been supplied in sufficient quant.i.ty to have prevented such a mishap. To convey the impression that the exhibitions of strength ascribed to Burroughs were proofs of diabolical a.s.sistance, and demonstrations that he was guilty of the crime of witchcraft, Mather says "he was a very puny man, yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant." There is nothing to justify the application of the word "puny" to him, except that he was of small stature. Such persons are often very strong. Burroughs had, from his college days, been noted for gymnastic exercises. There is nothing, I repeat, to justify the use of the word, by Mather, in the sense he designed to convey, of bodily weakness.

The truth is, that his extraordinary muscular power, as exhibited in such feats as lifting the barrel of cider, was the topic of neighborhood talk; and there was much variation, as is usual in such cases, some having it a barrel of cider, and some, of mola.s.ses. There is, among the Court papers, a _Memorandum, in Mr. George Burroughs trial, beside the written evidences_. One item is the testimony of Thomas Evans, "that he carried out barrels of mola.s.ses, meat, &c., out of a canoe, whilst his mate went to the fort for hands to help out with." Here we see another variation of the story. The amount of it is, that, while the mate thought a.s.sistance needed, and went to get it, Burroughs concluded to do the work himself. If the Prisoner had been allowed Counsel; or any discernment been left in the Judges, the whole of this evidence would have been thrown out of account, as without foundation and frivolous in its character; yet Increase Mather, who was present, was entirely carried away with it, and declared that, upon it alone, if on the Bench or in the jury-box, he would have convicted the Prisoner.

It is quite doubtful, however, whether the above testimony of Evans was given in, at the trial; for the next clause, in the same paragraph, is Sarah Wilson's confession, that: "The night before Mr. Burroughs was executed, there was a great meeting of the witches, nigh Sargeant Chandlers, that Mr. Burroughs was there, and they had the sacrament, and after they had done, he took leave, and bid them stand to their faith, and not own any thing. Martha Tyler saith the same with Sarah Wilson, and several others."

The testimony of these two confessing witches, "and several others,"

relating, as it did, to what was alleged to have happened "the night before Mr. Burroughs was executed," could not have been given at his trial, nor until after his death. Yet, as but three other confessing witches are mentioned in the files of this case, Mather must have relied upon this Memorandum to make up the "eight" said, by him, to have testified, "in the prosecution of the charge" against Burroughs. Hale, misled, perhaps, by the Memorandum, uses the indefinite expression "seven or eight." We know that one of the confessing witches, who had given evidence against Burroughs, retracted it before the Court, previous to his execution; but Mather makes no mention of that fact.

To go back to the barrel Mr. Burroughs lifted. I have stated the substance of the whole testimony relating to the point. Mather characterizes it, thus, in his report of the trial: "There was evidence likewise brought in, that he made nothing of taking up whole barrels, filled with mola.s.ses or cider, in very disadvantageous positions, and carrying them off, through the most difficult places, out of a canoe to the sh.o.r.e."

He made up this statement, as its substance and phraseology show, from Willard's deposition, then lying before him. In his use of that part of the evidence, in particular, as of the whole evidence, generally, the reader can judge whether he exhibited the spirit of an historian or of an advocate; and whether there was any thing to justify his expression, "made nothing of."

Any one scrutinizing the evidence, which, strange to say, was allowed to come in on a trial for witchcraft, relating to alleged misunderstandings between Burroughs and his two wives, involved in an alienation between him and some of the relations of the last, will see that it amounts to nothing more than the scandals incident to imbittered parish quarrels, and inevitably engendered in such a state of credulity and malevolence, as the witchcraft prosecutions produced. Yet our "historian," in his report of the case, says: "Now G. B. had been infamous, for the barbarous usage of his two successive wives, all the country over."

In my book, in connection with another piece of evidence in the papers, given, like that of the confessing witches just referred to, long after Burroughs's execution, I expressed surprise that the irregularity of putting such testimony among the doc.u.ments belonging to the trial, escaped the notice of Hutchinson, eminent jurist as he was, and also of Calef. The Reviewer represents this remark as one of my "very grave and unsupported charges against the honesty of Cotton Mather." I said nothing about Mather in connection with that point, but expressed strong disapprobation of the conduct of the official persons who procured the deposition to be made, and of those having the custody of the papers.

The Reviewer, imagining that my censure was levelled at Mather, and resolved to defend him, through thick and thin, denies that the doc.u.ment in question was "surrept.i.tiously foisted in." But there it was, when Mather had the papers, and there it now is,--its date a month after Burroughs was in his rocky grave. The Reviewer says that if I had looked to the end of Mather's notice of the doc.u.ment, or observed the brackets in which it was enclosed, I would have seen that Mather says that the paper was not used at the trial. I stated the fact, expressly, and gave Mather's explanation "that the man was overpersuaded by others to be out of the way upon George Burroughs's trial." [_ii., 300, 303_] I found no fault with Mather, in connection with the paper; and am not answerable, at all, for the snarl in which the Reviewer's mind has become entangled, in his eagerness to a.s.sail my book.

I ask a little further attention to this matter, because it affords an ill.u.s.tration of Mather's singular, but characteristic, method of putting things, often deceiving others, and sometimes, perhaps, himself. I quote the paragraph from his report of the trial of Burroughs, in the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, p. 64: "There were two testimonies, that G. B.

with only putting the fore-finger of his right hand into the muzzle of an heavy gun, a fowling-piece of about six or seven foot barrel, did lift up the gun, and hold it out at arms end; a gun which the deponents, though strong men, could not, with both hands, lift up, and hold out, at the b.u.t.t end, as is usual. Indeed, one of these witnesses was overpersuaded by some persons to be out of the way, upon G. B.'s trial; but he came afterwards, with sorrow for his withdraw; and gave in his testimony; nor were either of these witnesses made use of as evidences in the trial."

The Reviewer says that Mather included the above paragraph in "brackets," to apprise the reader that the evidence, to which it relates, was not given at the trial. It is true that the brackets are found in the Boston edition: but they are omitted, in the London edition, of the same year, 1693. If it was thought expedient to prevent misunderstanding, or preserve the appearance of fairness, _here_, the precaution was not provided for the English reader. He was left to receive the impression from the opening words, "there were two testimonies," that they were given at the trial, and to run the luck of having it removed by the latter part of the paragraph. The whole thing is so stated as to mystify and obscure. There were "_two_" testimonies; "_one_" is said not to have been presented; and then, that neither was presented. The reader, not knowing what to make of it, is liable to carry off nothing distinctly, except that, somehow, "there were testimonies" brought to bear against Burroughs; whereas not a syllable of it came before the Court.

Never going out of my way to criticise Cotton Mather, nor breaking the thread of my story for that purpose, I did not, in my book, call attention to this paragraph, as to its bearing upon him, but the strange use the Reviewer has made of it against me, compels its examination, in detail.

What right had Mather to insert this paragraph, at all, in his report of the _trial_ of George Burroughs? It refers to extra-judicial and gratuitous statements that had nothing to do with the trial, made a month after Burroughs had pa.s.sed out of Court and out of the world, beyond the reach of all tribunals and all Magistrates. It was not true that "there were two testimonies" to the facts alleged, _at the trial_, which, and which alone, Mather was professing to report. It is not a sufficient justification, that he contradicted, in the last clause, what he said in the first. This was one of Mather's artifices, as a writer, protecting himself from responsibility, while leaving an impression.

Mather says there were "_two_" witnesses of the facts alleged in the paragraph. Upon a careful re-examination of the papers on file, there appears to have been only _one_, in support of it. It stands solely on the single disposition of Thomas Greenslitt, of the fifteenth of September, 1692. The deponent mentions two other persons, by name, "and some others that are dead," who witnessed the exploit. But no evidence was given by them; and the muzzle story, according to the papers on file, stands upon the deposition of Greenslitt alone. The paragraph gives the idea that Greenslitt put himself out of the way, at the time of the trial of Burroughs; but there is reason to believe that he lived far down in the eastern country, and subsequently came voluntarily to Salem, from his distant home, to be present at the trial of his mother.

The deposition was obtained from him in the period between her condemnation and execution. The motives that may have led the prosecutors to think it important to procure, and the probable inducement that led him to give, the deposition are explained in my book [_ii., 298_]. Greenslitt states that "the gun was of six-foot barrel or thereabouts." Mather reports him as saying "about six or seven foot barrel." The account of the trial of Burroughs, throughout, is charged with extreme prejudice against the Prisoner; and the character of the evidence is exaggerated.

One of the witnesses, in the trial of Bridget Bishop, related a variety of mishaps, such as the stumping of the off-wheel of his cart, the breaking of the gears, and a general coming to pieces of the harness and vehicle, on one occasion; and his not being able, on another, to lift a bag of corn as easily as usual; and he ascribed it all to the witchery of the Prisoner. Mather gives his statement, concluding thus: "Many other pranks of this Bishop this deponent was ready to testify." He endorses every thing, however absurd, especially if resting on spectral evidence, as absolute, unquestionable, and demonstrated facts.

Nothing was proved against the moral character of Susannah Martin; and nothing was brought to bear upon her, but the most ridiculous and shameful tales of blind superst.i.tion and malignant credulity. The extraordinary ac.u.men and force of mind, however, exhibited in her defence, to the discomfiture of the examining Magistrates and Judges, excited their wrath and that of all concerned in the prosecution. Mather finishes the account of her trial in these words: "NOTE. This woman was one of the most impudent, scurrilous, wicked creatures in the world; and she did now, throughout her whole trial, discover herself to be such an one. Yet when she was asked what she had to say for herself, her chief plea was, 'that she had led a most virtuous and holy life.'"--_Wonders, etc._, 126.

Well might he, and all who acted in bringing this remarkable woman to her death, have been exasperated against her. She will be remembered, in perpetual history, as having risen superior to them all, in intellectual capacity, and as having utterly refuted the whole system of spectral doctrine, upon which her life and the lives of all the others were sacrificed. Looking towards "the afflicted children," who had sworn that her spectre tortured them, the Magistrate asked, "How comes your appearance to hurt these?" Her answer was, "How do I know? He that appeared in the shape of Samuel, a glorified Saint, may appear in any one's shape."

It is truly astonis.h.i.+ng that Mather should have selected the name of Elizabeth How, to be held up to abhorrence and cla.s.sed among the "Malefactors." It shows how utterly blinded and perverted he was by the horrible delusion that "possessed" him. If her piety and virtue were of no avail in leading him to pause in aspersing her memory, by selecting her case to be included in the "black list" of those reported by him in his _Wonders_, one would have thought he would have paid some regard to the testimony of his clerical brethren and to the feelings of her relatives, embracing many most estimable families. She was nearly connected with the venerable Minister of Andover, Francis Dane, and belonged to the family of Jacksons.

There was, and is, among the papers, a large body of evidence in her favor, most weighty and decisive, yet Mather makes no allusion to it whatever; although he must have known of it, from outside information as well as the doc.u.ments before him. Two of the most respectable Ministers in the country, Phillips and Payson of Rowley, many of her neighbors, men and women, and the father of her husband, ninety-four years of age, testified to her eminent Christian graces, and portrayed a picture of female gentleness, loveliness, and purity, not surpa.s.sed in the annals of her s.e.x. The two Clergymen exposed and denounced the wickedness of the means that had been employed to bring the stigma of witchcraft upon her good name. Mather not only withholds all this evidence, but speaks with special bitterness of this excellent woman, calling her, over and over again, throughout his whole account, "This How."