Part 7

It would appear perhaps incredible, that those infernal beings called witch-finders should ever have been tolerated and encouraged in any country calling itself christian and protestant, had we not seen characters no less detestable and diabolical countenanced, caressed, and patronised in such countries. The execrable reign of Charles II swarmed with _Spies_ and _informers_, whose talents were employed to promote religious uniformity, and suppress liberty of conscience. Like the witch finders, they were countenanced by the magistrates, patronized by the gentry, and enriched by the wages of unrighteousness, and the ruin of innocent persons and families. Our own time has seen such wretches, and poor Ireland has been not a little prolific of them. Even among our financial or revenue agents some of the same family have made their appearance, which some are apt to consider as an evil and a grievance of no small magnitude. If our own time has abounded with such characters, and if they have been really countenanced and cherished by rulers and magistrates, we must not be too severe upon our ancestors for the course which they pursued in regard to those called witches and witch-finders: for we do not seem to have yet gone so far beyond them in wisdom and virtue as we are sometimes apt to think.

Among those called witch-finders, the first place seems due to _Matthew Hopkins_, of Maningtree, in Essex, who has been already mentioned, as invited here by the magistrates, to assist them in the discovery, or detection and conviction of witches, and the suppression of witchcraft. This man, as we are told, was witch-finder for the associated counties, (Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk,) and hanged in one year no less than _sixty_ reputed witches in his own county. The old, the ignorant, and the indigent; such as could neither plead their own cause nor hire an advocate; were the miserable victims of this wretch’s avarice and villany. He pretended to be a great critic in _special marks_; which were only moles, scorbutic spots, or warts, which frequently grew large and pendulous in old age, but were absurdly supposed to be teats to suckle imps. His ultimate method of proof was by tying together the thumbs and toes of the suspected person, about whose waist was fastened a cord, the ends of which were held, on the banks of a river, by two persons, in whose power it was to straighten or slacken it. _Swimming_, upon this experiment, was deemed a full proof of guilt; for which king James, (who is said to have recommended it, if he did not invent it,) assigned the following sage reason: “That as such persons have renounced their baptism by water, so the water refuses to receive them.” Sometimes those who were accused of diabolical practices were tied neck and heels and tossed into a pond. If they floated they were consequently guilty, and therefore taken out and burnt: if they were _innocent_ they were only _drowned_. The experiment of _swimming_ was at length tried upon Hopkins himself, in his own way, and he was in the event condemned, and, as it seems, executed as a wizard; {727} an end or retribution which he appears to have richly merited. But how far he was (if at all) convinced of that, at his exit, we are not informed. If we are not mistaken, there was also, about the same time, a noted witch-finder at _Ipswich_, who found pretty full employment, but as we have no account either of his mode of proceeding or exploits, or yet of his exit, we can say no more about him.

At the time when the belief and detestation of witchcraft were universal in this country there can be no doubt but the number of our pretended witch-finders was very considerable. It may be fairly supposed that there were more than one for every county, and even that they were no less numerous than our modern mountebanks and quack doctors. Some of them, however, would, in the natural course of things, outshine the rest, or far excel them in point of reputation or celebrity. Such a one was Hopkins, and such a one was that famous Scotchman, whose name we cannot at present make out, who found so much employment, in the way of his vile vocation, on this, as well as on the other side of the Tweed. Of him a curious account is given in a book entitled, England’s Grievance, &c. by _Ralph Gardiner_, Gent. of Chirton, in Northumberland. London: printed in 1655. Reprinted in 1796. Where we have the following information.

“In or about the year 1649 or 1650, the magistrates of Newcastle upon Tyne sent two of their sergeants, namely Thomas Shevel, and Cuthbert Nicholson, into Scotland, to agree with a Scotchman, who pretended knowledge to finde out witches by pricking them with pins, to come to Newcastle, where he should try such who should be brought to him, and have 20_s._ a-piece for all he could condemn (or convict) as witches, and free passage thither and back again: [i.e. have his expenses borne to and fro.] When the sergeants had brought this witch-finder on horseback to town, the magistrates sent their bellman through the town ringing his bell, and crying, all people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tryed by the person appointed. _Thirty_ women were [accordingly] brought into the town-hall and stript, and then openly had pins thrust into their bodies, and most of them was (were) found guilty by him, and set aside.

“The said reputed witch-finder acquainted colonel Hobson that he knew women, whether they were witches or no, by their looks; and when he was searching a personable and good-like [or good looking] woman, the said colonel replied and said, Surely, this woman in none, and need not be tryed: but the scotchman said she was, for the town said she was, and therefore he would try her; and presently, in sight of all the people, laid her body naked to the waste, [waist] with her cloaths over her head; by which fright and shame all her blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin into her thigh, and suddenly let her coats fall, and then demanded whither she had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed? But she being amazed, replied little. Then he put his hands up her coats and pulled out the pin, setting her aside, as a guilty person and child of the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.”

“Colonel Hobson perceiving the alteration of the foresaid woman, by her blood settling in her right parts, caused her to be brought again, and her cloaths pulled up to her thigh, and required the scot to run the pin into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and the said scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of the devil. So soon as he had done, and received his wages, he went into Northumberland to try women there, where he got of some 3_l._ a-piece. But Henry Ogle Esq. a late member of parliament, laid hold on him, and required bond of him, to answer the sessions, but he got away for Scotland, and it was conceived, if he had staid, he would have made most of the women in the north witches, for money.”

The poor Newcastle women, whom this wretch had set aside and pronounced guilty, were put in prison till the assizes, when 14 of them, and _one man_, were condemned, and afterwards executed: all solemnly protesting their innocence. Their names are mentioned at page 115 of the said book. The truth of the above account is attested by three persons, whose names it is needless to insert here.—As to the infamous witch-finder himself, we are told that “he was afterwards taken up in Scotland, cast into prison, indicted, arraigned, and condemned for such like villanie exercised in Scotland: and on the gallows confessed he had been the death of above 220 women, in England and Scotland, for the gain of 20_s._ a-piece, and beseeched forgiveness, and was executed.”

The author of the work from which this account is extracted, indignantly inquires, “by what law the magistrates of Newcastle could send to another nation for a mercenary person to try women for witches? and set the bellman to cry for them to be brought in?—and give 20_s._ a piece to the former to condemn them?” These queries we know not how to answer, but by supposing that the whole was a _lawless_, as well as a most iniquitous, barbarous, and scandalous business. The magistrates of Newcastle certainly appear on this occasion a vile and infamous crew, whose memory ought to be held up to the horror of perpetual detestation. How much better the magistrates of Lynn would have appeared, had we so particular an account of their proceedings, when they sent for Hopkins, it is impossible now to say. Their conduct, to say the least of it, appears sufficiently dark and despicable.

While we feel and express a just indignation against the witchfinders, as well as against the spies and informers and such like miscreants, we ought not to forget how much the existence, sufferance, and employment of them reflect on the character of the rulers and magistrates of those days, and even of the nation, or public at large; for had these been sufficiently enlightened and humanized, those detestable wretches had never been encouraged and employed, or even endured in the country. How baleful and deplorable therefore must intellectual blindness or ignorance be in any community? how desirable, important, and necessary for all descriptions of men, is the true knowledge of their respective rights and duties! Had our magistrates and legislators always possessed that knowledge, and acted accordingly, our annals had never been disgraced, as they are, with the recital of so many acts of injustice and oppression, or with such shocking accounts of the torturing, burning, and hanging of so many reputed criminals, under the misapplied and odious names of witches, heretics, and blasphemers.

SECTION III.

_Additional observations on Witchcraft_, _and on the absurd and superstitious notions entertained by our ancestors concerning witches_, _as well as their deep-rooted and deadly antipathy against all those whom they considered as such_.

That the world abounded in former ages, and from the remotest periods, with jugglers and other sorts of artful impostors, who pretended to the knowledge of future events and other secrets, and so supported themselves and acquired great names by working upon the weakness, or imposing upon the credulity of mankind, is well known. Being of different sorts they went under different names, according to their respective pretensions, or peculiar, apparent, or professed modes of proceeding. Hence we speak of them under the various appellations of magicians, sorcerers, diviners, conjurers, witches and wizards, &c. each, or most of which denote a certain distinction of character or operation. {732} There were among them from the earliest times ventriloquists and consummate jugglers, well skilled in the arts of dexterity, or slight of hand tricks, and their operations served, (as real miracles did with the true prophets,) to gain credit to their declarations and pretensions. Thus their high and solemn professions, with the aid of gastriloquy, legerdemain or juggling, obtained credit in the world, so as to establish their character or fame, and perpetuate the delusion. Falshood assumed the name or place of truth, and fiction that of reality: and those who were thus taken in, or imposed upon, have always with difficulty been undeceived.

Formerly the names of magicians, sorcerers, witches, &c. were appropriated to those only who avowed or professed themselves to be such; but latterly, or in more recent times, they seem to have been chiefly, if not entirely appropriated to those who did _not_ make such an avowal or profession, and who even disclaimed any such imputation or pretension. And, what is exceedingly remarkable, those who were uncommonly knowing, and those who were uncommonly ignorant became now equally the objects of suspicion, and were of course included under one or another of those appellations; as if extraordinary intelligence and extraordinary stupidity equally indicated an alliance or confederacy with the devil. Such men as _Roger Bacon_ and _Galileo_, the most enlightened of their species, were more than suspected to be _sorcerers_, and multitudes of poor creatures, mostly old women, who were no way distinguished from the rest of the community, except by their extreme poverty, or extreme ignorance, have been treated in the most brutal manner, and in the end burnt or hanged, under the opprobrious name of _witches_—in the infamy of which conduct, as we have shewn, this town is deeply implicated.

Before the reformation there was, it seems, in this country a regular board of justice, for the constant apprehension and conviction of magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, witches, &c. and a warrant is said to be still extant for the seizing of one Thomas Northfield, _professor of divinity_, and _sorcerer_, with all his books and instruments. {734a} This double character, of conjurer and divine, exhibits the poor fellow in a queer kind of light, as a sort of amphibious animal. What he was as a divine, it is impossible now to ascertain. He might be eminent, or he might not. {734b} But his being also a sorcerer or conjurer, in the usual acceptations of those words, seems no way entitled to credit; so that his lying under that imputation, or his being so reputed, was merely the effect of the blind superstition which then prevailed, and which usually ascribed every appearance of superior genius or intelligence to a diabolical inspiration.

After the reformation, the rage against witches and sorcerers underwent no abatement. New laws were enacted against them, and reputed offenders were prosecuted with the utmost rigour. The most learned of our sovereigns, (Henry VIII. and James I.) not only strongly believed in the existence of such offenders, but likewise held them in the greatest abhorrence: Hence by statute 33 Henry VIII, c. 8. witchcraft and sorcery are made felony without benefit of clergy; and by statute 1 Jac. 1. c. 12. it is enacted, “that all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, _feeding_, or _rewarding_ any evil spirit; or taking up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment; or killing, or otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts; should be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy, and suffer death. And if any person should attempt by sorcery to discover hidden treasure, or to restore stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love, or to hurt any man or beast, though the same were not effected, he or she should suffer imprisonment and pillory for the first offence, and death for the second.” These acts (judge Blackstone says) “continued in force till lately, to the terror of all ancient females in the kingdom: and many poor wretches were sacrificed to the prejudice of their neighbours and their own illusion; not a few having, by some means or other, confessed the fact at the gallows. But (he adds,) all executions for this dubious crime are now at an end. Accordingly it is with us enacted by statute 9 Geo. II. c. 5. that no prosecution shall be carried on against any person for conjuration, witchcraft, sorcery, or inchantment. {736a} But the misdemeanor of persons pretending to use witchcraft, tell fortunes, or discover stolen goods by skill in the occult sciences, is still deservedly punished with a year’s imprisonment, and standing four times in the pillory.” {736b}

Thus it appears that it was not till the last reign that the sanguinary laws against witchcraft &c. were repealed in this country; so that we had enjoyed the light of the reformation full 200 years before we discerned the injustice and bloodguiltiness of those laws, or even the folly and absurdity of believing that those poor, ignorant, defenceless women, whom we were pleased to call witches, had actually sold their souls and bodies to the devil, and had in exchange obtained from him the power of working miracles. For we always imputed to our witches a supernatural power, which we deemed one of their essential characteristics: and we firmly believed that they could fly, or ride in the air upon broomsticks, change themselves into the form of other animals, injure their neighbours in their persons or property, by their looks, their thoughts, or their wishes, &c. Now, if not only the public at large and the juries, but even the judges and legislators could believe all this, what wonder is it if some of the poor old women could do so too, as they are said to have sometimes made such a confession? Their confession, however, appears to have been often, if not always, the mere effect of terror and confusion. {737} Poor hapless creatures! without a friend in the world to take their part, or speak a word in their behalf; terrified also and confounded beyond measure by the presence of their judge and the awful apparatus of a court of Justice, they would confess any thing that might be urged upon them, and all without thought or reflection, or even knowing what they said.

It is not unworthy of observation that witches were formerly, even by our legislators, classed with heretics, and witchcraft went under the name of heresy, being deemed a species of that offence, and subjected to the same punishment, that of _burning_. It might quite as well have gone under the name of _rebellion_ or _high treason_, or any other crime, for it has as much affinity with them, to the full, as it has with heresy. It is astonishing how often, or how commonly it is that human laws and governments are characterized by ignorance, absurdity, injustice, cruelty, _folly_ and _madness_. So unfortunate in general has the world been in its rulers, that most of them have proved its greatest enemies, though often extolled to the skies, for every imaginable excellence, by the vile sycophants that surround them, and the vermin of every province and district who live and fatten on their oppressive and rapacious devices.

SECTION IV.

_Summary view of the whole subject—account of proceedings against witches in this country till the repeal of the laws that chiefly affected them—hints on the present state of the nation in regard to this and its kindred delusions_.

The proper idea of _witchcraft_, it is presumed, has been already very plainly suggested; but lest it should not seem sufficiently clear to our readers in general, it may be proper to attempt here a more explicit definition. We say therefore that witchcraft is a supernatural power which persons were supposed to obtain the possession of by entering into compact with the devil. It was believed that they had given themselves up to him body and soul; and that he engaged on his part that they should want for nothing, and that he would avenge them upon all their enemies:—also, that as soon as the bargain was concluded, the devil delivered up to the witch an imp, or familiar spirit, to be ready at a call and do whatever it was directed. By the assistance of this imp and the devil together, [that is, of both the young devil and the old one,] the witch, who was almost always an old woman, was enabled, as it was firmly believed, to do very marvellous feats—even to transport herself in the air, on a broomstick or a spit, to distant places to attend the assemblies or meetings of the witches; for, according to this belief, or way of thinking, the witches, (like some of our modern sects,) actually had their _assemblies_, _associations_, or general _conferences_, at which the devil himself always presided. It was also believed that they were enabled to transform themselves into various shapes, particularly to assume the forms of _cats_ and _hares_, in which they most delighted; to inflict diseases on whomsoever they thought proper; and to punish their enemies in a variety of ways. {739} These ideas of witchery could not obtain belief among the heathens, as they had no knowledge of our _devil_.

Under popish darkness and delusion these views of witchcraft universally obtained in Europe till the 16th century, and the doctrine maintained its ground with tolerable firmness till after the middle of the seventeenth, and even till the former part of the eighteenth century, when it was obliged to give way to more rational views of things. Vast numbers of reputed witches were here, in _protestant_ and _evangelical England_, convicted and condemned to be burnt every year; and a man who had the hardihood to deny the doctrine, or doubt of its truth, would be at once suspected of atheism, and perhaps run the risk of being burnt, if not for downright witchcraft, yet at least for advocating the cause, and being the agent of his Satanic majesty. {740}

Of the _methods of discovering witches_, one was to weigh the supposed criminal against the _church bible_, which, if she was guilty, would preponderate. Another method was by making her attempt to say the Lord’s Prayer; this no witch was able to repeat entirely, but would omit some part or other: all witches did not hesitate at the same place; some leaving out one part and some another.—It was also believed that witches always said their prayers _backwards_.—_Teats_, though which the imps suckled, were indubitable marks of a witch: these were always raw, and also insensible; and, if squeezed, sometimes yielded a drop of blood. A witch could not weep more than three tears, and that only out of the left eye. This want of tears was, by the witchfinders, and even by some _judges_, considered as a very substantial proof of guilt. _Swimming_ a witch, as was before observed, was another kind of popular ordeal generally practised: for this she was stript naked, and cross bound, the right thumb to the left toe, and the left thumb to the right toe. Thus prepared, she was thrown into a pond or river, in which, if guilty, she could not sink; for having, as was said before, by her compact with the devil, renounced the benefit of the water of baptism, that element, in its turn, renounced her, and refused to receive her into its bosom.

The trial by _stool_, another method for the discovery of witches, was thus managed: having taken the suspected witch, she was placed in the middle of a room upon a stool or table, cross legged, or in some other uneasy posture; to which if she submitted not, she was bound with cords: there she was watched, and kept without food or sleep, for twenty four hours; for it was believed that they should within that time see her imp come and suck. A little hole was therefore made in the door for the imp to come in at: and lest he should come in a less discernible shape, they that watched were taught to be frequently sweeping the room, and, if they saw any _spiders_ or _flies_, to kill them; if they could not kill them, then they might be sure they were _imps_.