Part 10

_Martin._ 'I do not desire to spend my judgment upon it.'

_Magistrate._ 'Don't you think they are bewitched?'

_Martin._ 'No, I do not think they are.'

_Magistrate._ 'Tell me your thoughts about them, then?'

_Martin._ 'No: my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out, then another's their master.'

_Magistrate._ '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.'

_Magistrate._ 'Well, what have you done towards this?'

_Martin._ 'Nothing at all.'

_Magistrate._ 'Why, it is you or your appearance.'

_Martin._ 'I can't help it.'

_Magistrate._ '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.'

It was then also noted, that if the afflicted went to approach her, they were flung down to the ground. The court counted themselves alarmed by these things, to inquire farther into the conversation of the prisoner, and see what might occur to render these accusations further credible. John Allen testified, that he refused, because of the weakness of his oxen, to cart some stones, at the request of this Martin. She was displeased, and said it had been as good that he had, for his oxen should never do him any more service. Whereupon, as he was going home, one of his oxen tired, so that he was forced to unyoke him that he might get him home. He put his oxen, with many others, on Salisbury beach; they all ran into Merrimack river, and the next day were found on Plum Island. They next ran, with a violence that seemed wholly diabolical, right into the sea, swimming as far as they could be seen; and out of fourteen good oxen all were drowned, save one. John Atkinson testified, that he exchanged a cow with the son of said Martin, whereat she muttered and was unwilling he should have it. Going to receive his cow, though he hamstringed her, and haltered her, she, of a tame creature, grew so mad they could scarce get her along. She broke all the ropes that were fastened unto her, and, though she was tied fast to a tree, yet she made her escape, and gave them such further trouble, as they could ascribe it to no cause but witchcraft. J. Kemball testified, that the said Martin, upon a causeless disgust, threatened him that a certain cow should never do him any more service, and it came to pass accordingly, for soon after the cow was found stark dead on the ground, without any distemper to be discerned upon her; and this was followed with the death of several more of his cattle. 'But,' says the reverend author, 'the said J. Kemball had a further testimony against the prisoner, which was truly admirable. He applied himself to buy a dog of this Martin; but she, not letting him have his choice, he said he would supply himself at one Blazdel's, and marked a puppy there which he liked. G. Martin, the husband of the prisoner, asked him if he would not have one of his wife's puppies, and he answered, no. Whereupon the prisoner replied, "As I live I will give him puppies enough." Within a few days after, Kemball coming out of the woods, there arose a little black cloud in the N. W. and Kemball immediately felt a force upon him, which made him not able to avoid running upon the stumps of trees, although he had a broad, plain, cart way before him; but though he had his axe on his shoulder to endanger him in his falling, he could not forbear going out of his way to tumble over them. When he came below the meeting-house, there appeared to him a little creature like a puppy, of a darkish color, and it shot backwards and forwards between his legs. He had the courage to use all possible endeavors to cut it with his axe, but he could not hit it, the puppy gave a jump from him, and went, as to him it seemed, into the ground. On going a little further, there appeared unto him a black puppy, bigger than the first, but as black as a Coal. Its motions were quicker than those of his axe. It flew at him and at his throat over his shoulders one way, and then over his shoulders another way; his heart now began to fail him, and he thought the dog would have tore his throat out. But he recovered himself and called on God in his distress, and it vanished away at once.'--'This S. Martin once walked from Amesbury to Newbury in an extraordinary season, when it was not fit for any one to travel. She bragged and showed how dry she was; it could not be perceived that so much as the soles of her shoes were wet. Being told that another person would have been wet up to the knees, she replied, "_she scorned to be drabbed_." It was noted that this testimony upon her trial, cast her into a very singular confusion. John Pressy testified, that being one evening bewildered near the field of Martin, as under enchantment, he saw a marvellous light, about the bigness of a half bushel, near two rods out of the way. He struck at it with a stick and laid it on with all his might. He gave it near forty blows and felt it a palpable substance. But going from it, his heels were struck up, and he was laid with his back on the ground, sliding, as he thought, into a pit, from whence he recovered by taking hold on the bush, although afterwards he could find no pit in the place. Having gone five or six rods he saw S. Martin standing on his left hand, as the light had done before, but they changed no words with one another. At length he got home extremely affrighted. The next day it was upon inquiry understood, that Martin was in a miserable condition by pains and hurts that were upon her.' (Forty stout blows would have killed any one but a witch.) 'The deponent further testified, that having affronted the prisoner, many years ago, she said he should never prosper; more particularly, that he should never have more than two cows; that though he were ever so likely to have more than two cows, yet he should never have them. From that very day to this, namely, for twenty years together, he could never exceed that number, but some strange thing or other still prevented his having more.'

TRIAL OF ELIZABETH HOW, JUNE 30, 1692.

'The most remarkable things ascribed to E. How, were, that the sufferers complained of her as the cause of their distresses, and they would fall down when she looked on them and were raised again on the touch of her hand. There was testimony, also, that the shape of her gave trouble to people nine or ten years ago. There were apparitions or ghosts testified by some of the present sufferers, which ghosts affirmed that this How had murdered them. J. How, brother to the husband of the prisoner, testified, that having refused to accompany her to her examination, as she desired, immediately some of his cattle were bewitched to death, leaping three or four feet high, squeaking, falling, and dying at once; and going to cut off an ear, the hand wherein the knife was held, was taken very numb and painful, and so remained for several days, and he suspected the prisoner as the cause of it. N. Abbot testified, that unusual and mischievous accidents would befall his cattle whenever he had any difference with her. Once in particular, she wished his ox choked, and within a little while that ox was choked with a turnip in his throat. A woman, on some difference with How, was bewitched, and she died charging her of having a hand in her death. Many people had their barrels of beer unaccountably mischiefed, spoiled, and spilt, upon displeasing her. One testified, that they once and again lost great quantities of drink out of their vessels, in such a manner as they could ascribe it to nothing but witchcraft. And also that How once gave her some apples, and when she had eaten them, she was taken with a very strange kind of maze, so that she knew not what she said or did. There was likewise a cluster of depositions that one J. Cummings refused to lend his mare to the husband of the said How; the mare was within a day or two taken in a strange condition. She seemed abused and bruised as if she had been running over the rocks, and was marked where the bridle went, as if burnt with a red hot bridle. On using a pipe of tobacco for the cure of the beast, a blue flame issued out of her which took hold of her hair and not only spread and burnt on her, but it also flew upwards towards the roof of the barn and like to have set the barn on fire, and the mare died very suddenly. F. Lane being hired by the husband of How to get him a parcel of posts and rails, Lane hired J. Pearly to assist him. The prisoner told Lane that the posts and rails would not do because Pearly helped him, but if he had gotten them alone they might have done well enough. When How came to receive his posts and rails, on taking them up by the ends, they, though good and sound, yet unaccountably broke off, so that Lane had to get twenty or thirty more. And this prisoner being informed of it, said she told him so before, because Pearly helped about them.'

TRIAL OF MARTHA CARRYER, AUGUST 2, 1692.

A considerable number of bewitched persons deposed that it was Martha Carryer or her shape, that grievously tormented them by biting, pricking, pinching, and choking them; the poor people were so tortured, that every one expected their death upon the very spot, but that on the binding of the prisoner they were eased. Moreover, the looks of Carryer then laid the afflicted people for dead; and her touch, if her eyes at the same time were off them, raised them again. It was testified, that on the mention of some having their necks twisted almost round by the shape of this Carryer, she replied, it's no matter though their necks had been twisted quite off. B. Abbot testified, that the prisoner was very angry with him upon laying out some land near her husband's. She was heard to say she would hold Abbot's nose as close to the grindstone as ever it was held since his name was Abbot. Presently after this, he was taken with a swelling in his foot, and then with a pain in his side, and exceedingly tormented. It bred a sore which was lanced by Dr Prescott. For six weeks it continued very bad, and then another sore bred, and finally a third, all which put him to very great misery. He was brought to death's door, and so remained till Carryer was taken and carried away by the constable. From which very day he began to mend and so grew better every day. Abbot was not only afflicted in his body but suffered greatly in the loss of his cattle in a strange and unaccountable manner. One A. Toothaker testified, that Richard, the son of M. Carryer, having some difference with him, pulled him down by the hair of his head; when he rose again he was going to strike at Richard, but fell down flat on his back to the ground, and had not power to stir hand or foot until he told Carryer he yielded, and then he saw the shape of his mother, the prisoner, go off his breast. One Foster, who had confessed herself a witch, testified, that she had seen the prisoner at some of their witch meetings, and that the devil carried them on a pole, but the pole broke and she hanging about Carryer's neck, they both fell down and she received a hurt by the fall. Many other evidences of her mischievous conduct were produced, which I omit; the last was this. In the time of the prisoner's trial, one S. Sheldon, in open court, had her hands unaccountably tied together with a wheel band, so fast, that without cutting, it could not be loosened. It was done, says Dr Mather, by a spectre, and the sufferer affirmed it was the prisoner's.

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There is something in the foregoing proceedings during the memorable events at Salem, that seems to surpass all our conceptions of impartial justice, christian charity, or humanity. It is humiliating to our nature to reflect, that a class of the most profligate wretches were brought together on the stage, and their base intrigues tolerated and encouraged, fanciful experiments witnessed, and little else than fictitious evidence of accusation received to condemnation; while all pleadings for mercy, on the score of innocence, were of no avail. Not a solitary instance is found on record of the voice of pity and compassion being raised in behalf of the friendless, ignorant victims of suspicion. They were subjected to barbarous tricks and senseless experiments, calculated to encourage fraud and imposition, and then consigned to the gallows for the consequences. Better that ten guilty persons escape, than one innocent should suffer. Unfortunately, no lawyers were at that time employed in criminal cases. Had our present court and our state prison been then in existence, the good people of Salem would not long have been molested by witches and bewitched girls, with their invisible ropes and chains.

But while we contemplate the melancholy errors of judgment in our predecessors, we ought in charity to cherish the belief that had not their minds been clouded in superstitious darkness, their posterity would not have been called to mourn over imbecilities so lamentably exemplified. But we would attribute to our venerated fathers no moral corruption, no perverseness of temper, no desire to swerve from the dictates of stern justice. Their task was most arduous, their path of duty obscured by novel occurrences, and their decisions unavoidably swayed by popular clamor and vulgar prejudice. If, unhappily, their intellects were tinctured with superstition, it was the effect of early education, fostered and confirmed by concurrent sentiment and opinion, propagated in books of the heathen and papist.

Much importance was attached by the magistrates to the effects of the witches' eyes upon the sufferers; but no explanation is given why the same eyes could produce no mischievous effects on any other person. Great stress was laid on the circumstance, that in the trials the sufferers were revived from their fits by the touch of the hand of the reputed witch, but not by the hand of any other person; but instances of the contrary can be adduced; the experiment was ordered to be made in a court in England; the afflicted girl's eyes being blindfolded, and she being touched by the hand of another woman, recovered as speedily as if touched by the accused witch.

The Rev. Dr Increase Mather, then President of Harvard College, may be considered as among the best authorities for the prevalent doctrines on the subject of witchcraft. On the 19th of October, 1692, he went to Salem and conferred with eight of the confessing witches, all of whom freely and relentingly recanted their former confessions, declaring that in making them they had violated the truth, being compelled to it by pressing threats and urgings, by which they were so affrighted as to agree to anything that would rescue them from their awful situation. But they confessed with anguish of soul that they had committed a great wickedness for which they implored forgiveness. In his 'Cases of Conscience,' published in 1693, Dr Mather has particular reference to the trials at Salem. In this work he observes, that 'the gift of healing the sick and possessed, was a special grace and favor of God for the confirmation of the truth of the gospel, but that such a gift should be annexed to the touch of wicked witches, as an infallible sign of their guilt is not easy to be believed.' If it be as supposed, by virtue of some compact with the devil, that witches have power to do such things, those who encourage them in the practice, whether courts or individuals, must be guilty of sacrilege. The accusers pretended to suffer much by bites, and the prints on the skin would compare precisely with the set of teeth of the accused, but those who had not such bewitched eyes, have seen the accusers bite themselves and then complain of the accused. It was true, also, that some who complained of being pricked by pins sticking in their flesh, were their own tormentors, for the purpose of effecting their wicked designs. The pins thus employed are still preserved at Salem. Dr Mather, in the work just quoted, judiciously affirms, that the evidence in the crime of witchcraft ought to be as clear as in any other crimes of a capital nature. He is decidedly opposed to the employment of spectral evidence as being alone sufficient to justify conviction. But he considers a free and voluntary confession as a sufficient ground of conviction; yet the reverend author himself cites one remarkable instance of false confession for the avowed purpose of effecting her own death in consequence of the cruel persecution which she suffered from suspicion only, and she was burnt at the stake. In most of the instances at Salem, the confessions proved false and deceptive, those who made them being totally ignorant of the nature of witchcraft. Our learned author further observes, that if two credible persons shall affirm on oath that they have seen the person accused, _doing things which none but such as have familiarity with the devil ever did or can do, that is a sufficient ground of conviction_. It was on this ground that he justified the condemnation and execution of George Burroughs, the minister; it being testified before the court, that he had been seen to lift a barrel of molasses or cider, and to extend with one hand a heavy musket at arms' length. Nothing could be more sophistical than evidence of this description, for there are persons who can lift a solid body of six or seven hundred pounds, and can extend a king's arm at arms' length, when held at the smallest end with one hand, and no jury in our day would condemn such to the gallows as wizards.

It is among the most unaccountable facts, that those who, to save their lives, belied their consciences, and confessed themselves guilty of having formed a league with the devil, and of committing horrid crimes, should be spared and suffered to live in society, while others, relying on their innocence, honestly despised those tempting conditions, should be consigned to the gallows. In fact, false confessions, fraud, and counterfeit, were so palpable, that the halter might with more justice have been applied to the accusers than to those who actually suffered.

But such, at that time, was the state of the public mind, that the more extravagant the tale, the more implicitly was it regarded. The hostility to witchcraft was so prevalent as to give a general bias unfriendly to the fair development of truth, or to the impartial examination of facts and circumstances. The unhappy victims were without defence, and their total ignorance subjected them to the most cruel treatment and sufferings. In one instance on record, there appears to us to be a profanation of the Lord's Prayer. The woman being required to repeat it before the court, instead of 'deliver us from evil,' expressed it 'deliver us from _all_ evil;' this was considered as referring to her own condition, and she was ordered to repeat it again. On the second trial, instead of 'hallowed be thy name,' she expressed '_hollowed_ be thy name.' Thus by her using the _o_, in place of _a_, it was concluded that she could not say the Lord's Prayer, and she was committed to jail as a witch.

In Dr Mather's 'Magnalia,' we have the following instance of witchcraft.

In the year 1679, the house of William Morse, at Newbury, was infested with demons. 'Bricks, and sticks, and stones, were often by some invisible hand, thrown at the house, and so were many pieces of wood; a cat was thrown at the woman of the house, and a long staff was danced up and down in the chimney, and afterwards the same long staff was hanged by a line, and swung to and fro, and when two persons laid it on the fire to burn, it was as much as they were able to do with their joint strength to hold it there. An iron crook was violently, by an invisible hand, hurled about, and a chair flew about the room until at last it lit upon the table, where the food stood ready to be eaten, and would have spoiled all, if the people had not with much ado saved a little. A chest, was by an invisible hand, carried from one place to another, and the doors barricaded; and the keys of the family taken some of them from the bunch where they were tied, and the rest flying about with a loud noise. For a while the people of the house could not sup quietly; ashes would be thrown into their suppers and on their heads. The man's shoes being left below, one of them would be filled with ashes and coals and thrown up after him. When in bed a stone, weighing about three pounds, was divers times thrown upon them. A box and a board were likewise thrown upon them, and a bag of hops being taken out of a chest, they were by the invisible hand, beaten therewith, till some of the hops were scattered on the floor, where the bag was then laid and left. The man was often struck by that hand, with several instruments, and the same hand cast their good things into the fire; yea, while the man was at prayer, a broom gave him a blow on his head behind and fell down before his face. While the man was writing, his ink-stand was by the invisible hand snatched from him, and being able nowhere to find it, he saw it at length drop out of the air down by the fire. A shoe was laid on his shoulder, and when he would have catched it, it was snatched from him and was then clapped on his head, and there held so fast, that the unseen fury pulled him with it backward on the floor. He had his cap torn off his head, and in the night he was pulled by the hair and pinched, and scratched; and the invisible hand pricked him with some of his awls, and with needles, and bodkins, and blows that fetched blood were sometimes given him. His wife going down into the cellar, the trap door was immediately by an invisible hand shut upon her, and a table brought and laid upon the door. When he was writing another time, a dish went and leaped into a pail and cast water upon the man and spoiled what he was about. His cap jumped off his head and on again, and the pot lid went off the pot into the kettle, then over the fire together. A little boy belonging to the family was a principal sufferer, for he was flung about at such a rate, that it was feared his brains would be beaten out. His bed-clothes would be pulled from him, his bed shaken, leaping forward and backward. The man took him to hold in a chair, but the chair fell a dancing, and both of them were very near being thrown into the fire. These, and a thousand such vexations, befalling the boy at home, they carried him to live at a doctor's. There he was quiet, but returning home he suddenly cried out he was pricked on the back, where was found strangely sticking a three tined fork belonging to the doctor, and had been seen at his house after the boy's departure. Afterwards his troublers found him out at the doctor's also, when crying out again he was pinched on the back, they found an iron spindle stuck into him; and on the like outcry again, they found pins in a paper stuck into him, and a long iron, a bowl of a spoon stuck upon him. He was taken out of his bed and thrown under it, and all the knives in the house were one after another stuck into his back; which the spectators pulled out, only one of them seemed to the spectators to come out of his mouth. The spectre would make all his meat, when he was going to eat, fly out of his mouth, and instead thereof make him fall to eating ashes, sticks, and yarn.'