In this Morse case we chose to present ostensible and reputed actors, prior to presenting descriptions of the special scenes in which history makes them prominent, because considerable knowledge of the age, character, and abilities pertaining to the chief supposed performers in the great Newbury tragedy, or semi-tragedy, will be helpful, if not essential, to any well-based conclusion as to whether any one of them was the leading intelligence that brought it upon the stage, and supervised and managed its apparent actors—and, if either was, then which one among them? If neither of them, then somebody else was manager there. Our instructive citation from Hazzard discloses the occasional action of agents and forces that are not recognized even to-day by the community at large, and therefore we wished it to be read in advance of facts which it greatly helps to explain. Way is now opened for introducing to those readers whose patience has sustained them through this long prologue, the facts of the case as stated by William Morse himself, and sworn to by both him and his wife.
“The testimony of William Morse: which saith, together with his wife, aged both about sixty-five years: that, Thursday night, being the twenty-seventh day of November, we heard a great noise without, round the house, of knocking of the boards of the house, and, as we conceived, throwing of stones against the house. Whereupon myself and wife looked out and saw nobody, and the boy all this time with us; but we had stones and sticks thrown at us, that we were forced to retire into the house again. Afterward we went to bed, and the boy with us; and then the like noise was upon the roof of the house.
“2. The same night, about midnight, the door being locked when we went to bed, we heard a great hog in the house grunt and make a noise, as we thought willing to get out; and that we might not be disturbed in our sleep, I rose to let him out, and I found a hog in the house and the door unlocked: the door was firmly locked when we went to bed.
“3. The next morning, a stick of links hanging in the chimney, they were thrown out of their place, and we hanged them up again, and they were thrown down again, and some into the fire.
“4. The night following, I had a great awl lying in the window, the which awl we saw fall down out of the chimney into the ashes by the fire.
“5. After this, I bid the boy put the same awl into the cupboard, which we saw done, and the door shut to: this same awl came presently down the chimney again in our sight, and I took it up myself. Again, the same night, we saw a little Indian basket, that was in the loft before, come down the chimney again. And I took the same basket, and put a piece of brick into it, and the basket with the brick was gone, and came down again the third time with the brick in it, and went up again the fourth time, and came down again without the brick; and the brick came down again a little after.
“6. The next day, being Saturday, stones, sticks, and pieces of bricks came down so that we could not quietly dress our breakfast; and sticks of fire also came down at the same time.
“7. That day, in the afternoon, my thread four times taken away, and came down the chimney; again my awl and gimlet wanting; again my leather taken away, came down the chimney; again my nails, being in the cover of a firkin, taken away, came down the chimney. Again, the same night, the door being locked, a little before day, hearing a hog in the house, I rose and saw the hog to be mine. I let him out.
“8. The next day, being Sabbath day, many stones, and sticks, and pieces of bricks came down the chimney: on the Monday, Mr. Richardson and my brother being there, the frame of my cowhouse they saw very firm. I sent my boy out to scare the fowls from my hog’s meat: he went to the cow-house and it fell down, my boy crying with the hurt of the fall. In the afternoon, the pots hanging over the fire did dash so vehemently one against the other, we set down one, that they might not dash to pieces. I saw the andiron leap into the pot, and dance and leap out; and again leap in and dance, and leap out again, and leap on a table and there abide; and my wife saw the andiron on the table: also I saw the pot turn itself over, and throw down all the water. Again we saw a tray with wool leap up and down, and throw the wool out, and so many times, and saw nobody meddle with it. Again, a tub his hoop fly off of itself, and the tub turn over, and nobody near it. Again, the woollen wheel turned upside down, and stood up on its end, and a spade set on it: Step. Greenleafe saw it, and myself and my wife. Again, my rope-tools fell down upon the ground before my boy could take them, being sent for them; and the same thing of nails tumbled down from the loft into the ground, and nobody near. Again, my wife and the boy making the bed, the chest did open and shut; the bed-clothes could not be made to lie on the bed, but fly off again.”
The disturbances commenced Thursday night, November 27; on December 3, six days only from the commencement of the troubles (see Upham, vol. i. p. 439), Powell was complained of before a magistrate, by William Morse, “for suspicion of working with the devil.” Powell appeared for a hearing five days later, on the 8th, and the testimony quoted above was, either then or at the time of the complaint on the 3d, submitted before Jo. Woodbridge, commissioner. Therefore the facts were of such recent occurrence as to be fresh in the memory of the deponent; and his prompt suspicion of Powell gives probability to the correctness of the statement in Woodward’s Series, that when Powell came to the house, pots, kettles, and chairs “resumed” their action “with more vigor than ever.” Powell’s presence was helpful to the performance. But the whole of Morse’s testimony is not embraced in the preceding. There is extant