Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply

by Charles Wentworth Upham

We gather other intimations, to this effect, from other passages, as follows: "Now, in my visiting of the miserable, I was always of this opinion, that we were ignorant of what power the Devils might have, to do their mischiefs in the shapes of some that had never been explicitly engaged in diabolical confederacies, and that therefore, though many witchcrafts had been fairly detected on enquiries provoked and begun by spectral exhibitions, yet we could not easily be too jealous of the snares laid for us in the device of Satan. The world knows how many pages I have composed and published, and particular gentlemen in the Government know how many letters I have written, to prevent the excessive credit of spectral accusations; wherefore I have still charged the afflicted that they should cry out of nobody for afflicting them; but that, if this might be any advantage, they might privately tell their minds to some one person of discretion enough to make no ill use of their communications; accordingly there has been this effect of it, that the name of no one good person in the world ever came under any blemish by means of an afflicted person that fell under my particular cognizance; yea, no one man, woman, or child ever came into any trouble, for the sake of any that were afflicted, after I had once begun to look after them. How often have I had this thrown into my dish, 'that many years ago I had an opportunity to have brought forth such people as have, in the late storm of witchcraft, been complained of, but that I smothered it all'; and after that storm was raised at Salem, I did myself offer to provide meat, drink, and lodging for no less than six of the afflicted, that so an experiment might be made, whether prayer, with fasting, upon the removal of the distressed, might not put a period to the trouble then rising, without giving the civil authority the trouble of prosecuting those things, which nothing but a conscientious regard unto the cries of miserable families could have overcome the reluctance of the honorable Judges to meddle with. In short, I do humbly but freely affirm it, there is not a man living in this world who has been more desirous, than the poor man I, to shelter my neighbors from the inconveniences of spectral outcries; yea, I am very jealous I have done so much that way, as to sin in what I have done; such have been the cowardice and fearfulness where unto my regard to the dissatisfaction of other people has precipitated me. I know a man in the world, who has thought he has been able to convict some such witches as ought to die; but his respect unto the public peace has caused him rather to try whether he could not renew them by repentance."—Calef, 11.

The careful reader will notice that "six of the afflicted," at Salem Village, would have included nearly the whole circle of the accusing girls there. If he had been allowed to take them into his exclusive keeping, he would have had the whole thing in his own hands.

In his account of "the afflictions of Margaret Rule," printed by Calef, in his book, and from which the foregoing extracts have been made speaking of the "eight cursed spectres" with which she was assaulted, in the fall of 1693, Mather says: "She was very careful of my reiterated charges, to forbear blazing their names, lest any good person should come to suffer any blast of reputation, through the cunning malice of the great accuser; nevertheless, having since privately named them to myself, I will venture to say this of them, that they are a sort of wretches who, for these many years, have gone under as violent presumptions of witchcraft as, perhaps, any creatures yet living upon earth; although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young woman were evidence enough to prove them so."—Calef, 4.

The following is from his Wonders of the Invisible World, 12: "If once a witch do ingeniously confess among us, no more spectres do, in their shapes, after this, trouble the vicinage; if any guilty creatures will accordingly, to so good purpose, confess their crime to any Minister of God, and get out of the snare of the Devil, as no Minister will discover such a conscientious confession, so, I believe, none in the authority will press him to discover it, but rejoice in a soul saved from death."

In his Life of Phips, he says: "In fine, the country was in a dreadful ferment, and wise men foresaw a long train of dismal and bloody consequences. Hereupon they first advised, that the afflicted might be kept asunder, in the closest privacy; and one particular person (whom I have cause to know), in pursuance of this advice, offered himself singly to provide accommodations for any six of them, that so the success of more than ordinary prayer, with fasting, might, with patience, be experienced, before any other courses were taken."—Magnalia, Book II., p. 62.

Hutchinson gives an extract from a letter, written by John Allyn, Secretary of Connecticut, dated, "Hartford, March 18, 1693," to Increase Mather, as follows: "As to what you mention, concerning that poor creature in your town that is afflicted, and mentioned my name to yourself and son, I return you hearty thanks for your intimation about it, and for your charity therein mentioned; and I have great cause to bless God, who, of his mercy hitherto, hath not left me to fall into such an horrid evil."—History, ii., 61, note.

Further, it was on account of some particular plan, in reference to the management of this description of evidence, I am inclined to think, that he felt the importance of being present at the trials. For this reason, he laments the illness that prevented his accompanying Richards to the Court, at its opening, on the second of June, to "assist the noble service," as he says, "with the utmost of my little skill and care."

This language shows conclusively, by the way, the great influence he had, at that time, in directing the Government, particularly the Court. He would not have addressed one of the Judges, in such terms, had he not felt that his "skill and care" would be recognized and permitted to take effect. We may well lament, with him, that he could not have been present at the first trial. It would not, then, have been left to conjecture and scrutiny, to determine what his plan was; and an open attempt, to bring the Court to adopt it, might have given another turn to affairs.

In his Diary, on the twenty-ninth of April, is the following: "This day I obtained help of God, that he would make use of me, as of a John, to be a herald of the Lord's Kingdom, now approaching." "My prayers did especially insist upon the horrible enchantments and possessions, broke forth in Salem Village, things of a most prodigious aspect, a good issue to those things, and my own direction and protection thereabouts, I did especially petition for."

The date of this entry is important. On the eleventh, nineteenth, and twenty second of April, impressive scenes had been exhibited at Salem Village. Some of the most conspicuous cases of the preliminary examinations of persons arrested had occurred. The necessary steps were then being taken to follow up those examinations with a procedure that would excite the country to the highest pitch. The arrangements, kept concealed at Salem, and unsuspected by the public at large, were made and perfected in Boston. On the day after the date of the foregoing memorandum, a Magistrate in that place issued the proper order for the arrest of the Rev. George Burroughs; and officers were started express to Maine for that purpose. This was "the most prodigious aspect of affairs" at the time. All the circumstances must have been known by Mather. Hence his earnest solicitude that proceedings should be conducted under his own "direction and protection." The use of these terms, looks as if Mather contemplated the preliminary examinations as to take place under his direction and management, and will be borne in mind, when we come to consider the question of his having been, more or less, present at them.