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spectres had perpetually haunted and tormented them: and Good was twelve months after hanged on this
accusation.
A person, who was one of the first to fall under the imputation, was one George Burroughs, also a minister of
Salem. He had, it seems, buried two wives, both of whom the busy gossips said he had used ill in their
life-time, and consequently, it was whispered, had murdered them. This man was accustomed foolishly to
vaunt that he knew what people said of him in his absence; and this was brought as a proof that he dealt with
the devil. Two women, who were witnesses against him, interrupted their testimony with exclaiming that they
saw the ghosts of the murdered wives present (who had promised them they would come), though no one else
in the court saw them; and this was taken in evidence. Burroughs conducted himself in a very injudicious way
on his trial; but, when he came to be hanged, made so impressive a speech on the ladder, with fervent
protestations of innocence, as melted many of the spectators into tears.
The nature of accusations of this sort is ever found to operate like an epidemic. Fits and convulsions are
communicated from one subject to another. The spectral sight, as it was called, is obviously a theme for the
vanity of ignorance. Love of fame, as the poet teaches, is an universal passion. Fame is placed indeed on
a height beyond the hope of ordinary mortals. But in occasional instances it is brought unexpectedly within
the reach of persons of the coarsest mould; and many times they will be apt to seize it with proportionable
avidity. When too such things are talked of, when the devil and spirits of hell are made familiar conversation,
when stories of this sort are among the daily news, and one person and another, who had a little before
nothing extraordinary about them, become subjects of wonder, these topics enter into the thoughts of many,
sleeping and waking: their young men see visions, and their old men dream dreams.
In such a town as Salem, the second in point of importance in the colony, such accusations spread with
wonderful rapidity. Many were seized with fits, exhibited frightful contortions of their limbs and features, and
WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND. 142
Lives of the Necromancers
became a fearful spectacle to the bystander. They were asked to assign the cause of all this; and they
supposed, or pretended to suppose, some neighbour, already solitary and afflicted, and on that account in ill
odour with the townspeople, scowling upon, threatening, and tormenting them. Presently persons, specially
gifted with the spectral sight, formed a class by themselves, and were sent about at the public expence from
place to place, that they might see what no one else could see. The prisons were filled with the persons
accused. The utmost horror was entertained, as of a calamity which in such a degree had never visited that
part of the world. It happened, most unfortunately, that Baxter's Certainty of the World of Spirits had been
published but the year before, and a number of copies had been sent out to New England. There seemed a
strange coincidence and sympathy between vital Christianity in its most honourable sense, and the fear of the
devil, who appeared to be come down unto them, with great wrath. Mr. Increase Mather, and Mr. Cotton
Mather, his son, two clergymen of highest reputation in the neighbourhood, by the solemnity and awe with
which they treated the subject, and the earnestness and zeal which they displayed, gave a sanction to the
lowest superstition and virulence of the ignorant.
All the forms of justice were brought forward on this occasion. There was no lack of judges, and grand juries,
and petty juries, and executioners, and still less of prosecutors and witnesses. The first person that was hanged
was on the tenth of June, five more on the nineteenth of July, five on the nineteenth of August, and eight on
the twenty-second of September. Multitudes confessed that they were witches; for this appeared the only way
for the accused to save their lives. Husbands and children fell down on their knees, and implored their wives
and mothers to own their guilt. Many were tortured by being tied neck and heels together, till they confessed
whatever was suggested to them. It is remarkable however that not one persisted in her confession at the place
of execution.
The most interesting story that occurred in this affair was of Giles Cory, and Martha, his wife. The woman
was tried on the ninth of September, and hanged on the twenty-second. In the interval, on the sixteenth, the
husband was brought up for trial. He said, he was not guilty; but, being asked how he would be tried? he
refused to go through the customary form, and say, By God and my country. He observed that, of all that
had been tried, not one had as yet been pronounced not guilty; and he resolutely refused in that mode to
undergo a trial. The judge directed therefore that, according to the barbarous mode prescribed in the
mother-country, he should be laid on his back, and pressed to death with weights gradually accumulated on
the upper surface of his body, a proceeding which had never yet been resorted to by the English in North
America. The man persisted in his resolution, and remained mute till he expired.
The whole of this dreadful tragedy was kept together by a thread. The spectre-seers for a considerable time
prudently restricted their accusations to persons of ill repute, or otherwise of no consequence in the
community. By and by however they lost sight of this caution, and pretended they saw the figures of some
persons well connected, and of unquestioned honour and reputation, engaged in acts of witchcraft.
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