Gov. Thomas Hutchinson

“ And now, may it please your honours, your poor and humble declarant having, in part, given your honours a description of my condition, do leave it to your honours pious and judicious discretions to take pity and compassion on my young and tender years; to act and do with me as the Lord above and your honours shall see good, having no friend but the Lord to plead my cause for me; not being guilty in the least measure of the crime of witchcraft, nor any other sin that deserves death from man ”

“ Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and, much more, convictions whereupon persons may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused person’s being represented by a specter unto the afflicted; inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing, that a demon may, by God’s permission, appear, even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a virtuous man. ”

“ No man of any reputation who lived in that generation, and saw what transpired at Salem Village and its vicinity, doubted that there was some influence then exerted which could not be explained by the known laws of matter or of mind. As these men left the stage, the theory of fraud was gradually accepted by their descendants; and at the period when Gov. Hutchinson wrote, it was well nigh the universal belief among the educated classes. ”

“ The prison at Salem was so full that some were obliged to be removed, and many were in other prisons reserved for trial. The General Court which sat in October, although they had revived the old colony law which was in these words, “If any man or woman be a witch, that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit, they shall be put to death”—yet this not being explicit enough, they enacted another in the words of the statute of King James, which continued in force until the trials were over, but both were afterwards disallowed by the crown. ”

“ Goody Foster, you remember we have three times spoken with you, and do you now remember what you then confessed to us? Her former confession was read, which she owned to be all true.
[Pg 26]
You have been engaged in very great wickedness, and some have been left to hardness of heart to deny; but it seems that God will give you more favor than others, inasmuch as you relent. But your daughter here hath confessed some things that you did not tell us of. Your daughter was with you and Goody Carrier, when you did ride upon the stick. ”

“ The neighbors in general agreed they were under an evil hand; some affirmed they had seen them flying, and it was pronounced a piece of witchcraft, as much as ever had been at Salem. Their parents were indulgent to them, and though some of the people were not without suspicion of fraud, yet no great pains were taken to detect them. Physicians were employed to no purpose, and ministers prayed over them without success. ”

“ At length the friends of some of the accused urged them to a confession, although they knew they were innocent, the magistrates declaring that confessing was the way to obtain mercy. The first confession, which remains upon the files, is of Deliverance Hobbs, May 11th, 1692, being in prison. She owned everything she was required to do. The confessors, like the accusers, multiplied, the witches having always company with them, who were immediately sent for and examined. No wonder if they were affrighted to the last degree; they owned whatever their friends and magistrates would have them. ”

“ The views of chief justice Stoughton in favor of admitting spectral testimony are well known; and those of the three Salem members of the commission, Hathorne, Corwin and Gedney, we have before us in the records of their examinations, than which nothing more atrocious can be imagined. If the four Boston members had stood out against the views of Stoughton and the Salem members, there had been a tie in the commission. Judge Sewall says, that, in the guilt contracted, “he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of.” ”

“ Indeed all the examinations at Salem have, in almost all the circumstances, the like to match them in the account given to the world a little while before by this relator. This conformity, instead of rendering the afflicted suspected, was urged in confirmation of the truth of their stories, the Old-England demons and the New-, being so near alike. Nobody thought a parcel of young girls could have so much of the Devil in them as to combine together in an attempt to take away the lives of such a multitude of people as were accused by them. ”

“ We have a very strange thing among us, which we know not what to make of, except it be witchcraft, as we think it must needs be. Three or four children of one Goodwin, a mason, that have been for some weeks grievously tormented, crying out of head, eyes, tongue, teeth; breaking their neck, back, thighs, knees, legs, feet, toes, &c.; and then they roar out, Oh my head! Oh my neck! and from one part to another the pain runs almost as fast as I write it. The pain is doubtless very exquisite, and the cries most dolorous and affecting ”

“ Facts often appear in their true light in after ages which had been seen in a false one by such as were upon the stage in the time of them. A strong bias is now evidently seen in favor of the accusers, and no measures were taken to discover the fraud. The same prejudice will appear through the whole process.
John the Indian, one of these accusers, was husband to Tituba the first witch complained of. She confessed and was committed to prison. Her husband, no doubt, was convinced he should stand a better chance among the afflicted than the accused. ”

“ Even to this day, the country seems rather to be divided in opinion whether it was the accused or the afflicted who were under some preternatural or diabolical possession, than whether the afflicted were under bodily distempers, or altogether guilty of fraud and imposture. ”

“ The witch was found guilty notwithstanding, and the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict and awarded sentence accordingly.
Susannah Martin had been suspected, ever since 1669, so that a great number of witch stories were told of her, and many of them given in evidence. One of the other being told by the minister at the place of execution, that he knew she was a witch, and therefore advised her to confess, she replied that he lied, and that she was no more a witch than he was a wizard, and if he took away her life, God would give him blood to drink. ”

“ Yesterday I called in at the house, and was informed by the parent that since the women were confined the children have been well while out of the house; but as soon as any of them come into the house, then taken as formerly; so that now all their children keep at their neighbors’ houses. If any step home they are immediately afflicted, and while they keep out are well. I have been a little larger in this narrative because I know you have studied these things. We cannot but think the Devil has a hand in it by some instrument. ”

“ We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts, there is need of a very critical and exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the Devil’s authority, there be a door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us ”

“ The accusers having charged a great number in the county of Essex, I find in the examinations frequent mention of strangers whose shapes or specters were unknown to the afflicted, and now and then the names of a person at Boston and other distant places. Several some time after mention Mr. Dean, one of the ministers of Andover, but touch him more tenderly, somewhat as Mrs. Osgood in her confession, than they do Burroughs. Mr. Dean probably was better known and esteemed than the other, or he would have stood a bad chance. ”

“ The afflicted state of our poor neighbours, that are now suffering by molestations from the invisible world, we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in their several capacities. ”

“ Q. Are you willing your daughter should make a full and free confession? A. Yes. Q. Are you willing to do so too? A. Yes. Q. You cannot expect peace of conscience without a free confession. A. If I knew any thing more, I would speak it to the utmost. Goody Lacey, the daughter, called in, began thus; Oh, mother! how do you do? We have left Christ, and the Devil hath gat hold of us. How shall I get rid of this evil one? I desire God to break my rocky heart that I may get the victory this time. Q. Goody Foster, you cannot get rid of this snare, your heart and mouth is not open. ”

“ The statute of James I. was indeed more ancient than the colony charter, but no statute had ever been adopted here. The General Assembly had not then met, and there could have been no provision made by a Province law, but it seems by the eighth section that the English statutes were made the rule upon this extraordinary occasion. But what authority the court had to change the sentence from burning to hanging, I cannot conceive. ”

“ The deputies, on perusal of the acts of the honored court of assistants relating to the woman condemned for witchcraft, do not understand the reason why execution of the sentence given against her by the court is not executed, and that her second reprieval seems to us to be beyond what the law will allow, and do therefore judge meet to declare ourselves against it, with reference to the concurrence of the honored magistrates hereto. ”

“ When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as is possible of such noise, company and openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may no thing be used as a test for the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted among the people of God ”

“ Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the Devil’s legerdemains.
“7. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given to the Devils by our disbelieving those testimonies whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful calamity begun upon us, in the accusations of so many persons, whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the great transgression laid unto their charge. ”

“ Before the other trials the law against witchcraft under the first charter was established with the other Colony laws. The authority by which the court sat may as well be called in question. No authority is given by the Province charter to any powers short of the whole General Court to constitute courts of justice. The Governor indeed, with the consent of the Council, appoints judges, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, and all officers belonging to the courts. ”

“ The trial of Richard Hatheway, [42] before Lord Chief Justice Holt, opened the eyes of all except the lowest part of the people in England; and an act of Parliament in his late Majesty’s reign [43] will prevent the prejudice which remains in them from the mischiefs it used to produce on juries in judicial proceedings. It is a great pity the like examples of conviction and punishment had not been made here. I hope an impartial narrative of the supposed witchcrafts at Salem will convince the New-England reader that there was no thing preternatural in the whole affair ”

“ Out of this rule, which was wholly illegal, grew all the fatal results of the Salem trials. Judge Sewall was a parishioner of Samuel Willard, of the Old South Church in Boston, who regarded such evidence as the “Devil’s testimony”; and whose judicious conduct during the trials is worthy of the highest commendation. He was the intimate friend of Increase and Cotton Mather, who both held similar views. Three days before (March 31) , Cotton Mather had written to John Richards, one of the judges, cautioning him against the use of spectral testimony. ”

“ Turell could not divest himself of the idea that there was also diabolical agency manifested in these transactions. “I make no doubt,” he says (p. 16) , “but in this sinning Satan was very officious.” Again (p. 19) he gives this excellent advice: “Never use any of the Devil’s legerdemain tricks. You only gratify Satan, and invite him into your company to deceive you.” Persons who can accept the possibility of diabolical agency will find in Mr. Turell’s narrative ample scope for the exercise of their belief.
P.
[32] Elisha Hutchinson, a merchant in Boston, and grandfather of the author. ”

“ A judge shall not be punished for mere error of judgment, but it certainly [Pg 35] behooves him, in a trial for life especially, to consider well by what authority he acts.
The court was held again by adjournment at Salem, June 30. Six [five] women were brought upon trial, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes. [64] The court and jury seemed to have had no difficulty with any but Nurse. She was a church member, and probably her good character caused the jury to bring in a verdict not guilty ”

“ By this time about one hundred persons were in the several prisons [58] charged with witchcraft. The court of Oyer and Terminer began at Salem the first week in June [June 2d] . Only one of the accused, viz. Bridget Bishop, [59] alias Oliver, was brought upon trial. She had been charged with witchcraft twenty years before, by a person who acknowledged his guilt in accusing her upon his death-bed; but being a fractious old woman the losses the neighbors met with in their cattle and poultry, or by oversetting their carts, &c., were ascribed to her, and now given in evidence. ”

“ We cannot but, with all thankfulness, acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto the sedulous and assiduous endeavours of our honourable rulers, to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have been committed in the country, humbly praying, that the discovery of those mysterious and mischievous wickednesses may be perfected. ”