Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply

by Charles Wentworth Upham

In reference to the Advice of the Ministers, the Reviewer, in one part of his article, seems to complain thus: "Mr. Upham has never seen fit to print this paper;" in other parts, he assails me from the opposite direction, and in a manner too serious, in the character of the assault, to be passed over. In my book, (ii., 267) I thus speak of the Advice of the Ministers, referring to it, in a note to p. 367, in similar terms: "The response of the reverend gentlemen, while urging in general terms the importance of caution and circumspection in the methods of examination, decidedly and earnestly recommended that the proceedings should be vigorously carried on."

It is a summary, in general and brief terms, in my own language, of the import of the whole document, covering both sets of its articles. Hutchinson condenses it in similar terms, as do Calef and Douglas. I repeat, and beg it to be marked, that I do not quote it, in whole or in part, but only give its import in my own words. I claim the judgment of the reader, whether I do not give the import of the articles Mather printed in the Life of Phips—those pretending to urge caution—as fairly as of the articles he omitted, applauding the Court, and encouraging it to go on.

Now, this writer in the North American Review represents to the readers of that journal and to the public, that I have quoted the Advice of the Ministers, and, in variety of phrase, rings the charge of unfair and false quotation, against me. He uses this language: "If it were such a heinous crime for Cotton Mather, in writing the Life of Sir William Phips, to omit three Sections, how will Mr. Upham vindicate his own omissions, when, writing the history of these very transactions and bringing the gravest charges against the characters of the persons concerned, he leaves out seven Sections?" I quoted no Section, and made no omissions; and it is therefore utterly unjustifiable to say that I left out any thing. I gave the substance of the Sections Cotton Mather left out, in language nearly identical with that used by Hutchinson and all others. In the same way, I gave the substance of the Sections Mather published, in the very sense he always claimed for them. What I said did not bear the form, nor profess the character, of a quotation.

In the Wonders of the Invisible World, written in 1692, when the prosecutions were in full blast and Mather was glorying in them, and for the purpose of prolonging them, the only Section he saw fit, in a particular connection, to quote, was the SECOND. He prefaced it thus: "They were some of the Gracious Words inserted in the Advice, which many of the neighboring Ministers did this Summer humbly lay before our Honorable Judges." Let it be noted, by the way, that when he thus praised the document, its authorship had not been avowed. Let it further be noted, that it is here let slip that the paper was laid before the Judges, not Phips; showing that it was a response to them, not him. Let it be still further noted, that the Section which he thus cited, in 1692, is one of those which, when the tide had turned, he left out, in 1697.

The Reviewer, referring to Mather's quotation of the second Section of the Advice, in the Wonders, says: "he printed it in full, which Mr. Upham has never done;" and following out the strange misrepresentation, he says: "Mr. Upham does not print any part of the eighth Section, as the Ministers adopted it. He suppresses the essential portions, changes words, and, by interpolation, states that the Ministers 'decidedly,' 'earnestly,' and 'vehemently,' recommended that the 'proceedings' should be vigorously carried on. He who quotes in this manner needs other evidence than that produced by Mr. Upham to entitle him to impeach Mr. Mather's integrity." In another place he says, pursuing the charge of quoting falsely, as to my using the word "proceedings," "the word is not to be found in the Advice."

The eighth Section recommends "the speedy and vigorous prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious." In a brief reference to the subject, I use the words "speedily and vigorously," marking them as quoted, although their form was changed by the structure of the sentence of my own in which they appear. Beyond this, I have made no quotations, in my book, of the Advice—not a Section, nor sentence, nor clause, nor line, is a quotation, nor pretends to be. Without characterising what the Reviewer has done, in charging me with suppression of essential portions, interpolation, and not printing in full, or correctly, what the Ministers or any body else said, my duty is discharged, by showing that there is no truth in the charge—no foundation or apology for it.

The last of the works of Cotton Mather I shall examine, in this scrutiny of his retrospective opinions and position, relating to the witchcraft prosecutions, is the Magnalia, printed at London, in 1702. He had become wise enough, at that time, not to commit himself more than he could help.

The Rev. John Hale, of Beverly, died in May, 1700. He had taken an active part in the proceedings at Salem, in 1692, having, as he says, from his youth, been "trained up in the knowledge and belief of most of the principles" upon which the prosecutions were conducted, and had held them "with a kind of implicit faith." Towards the close of the Trials, his view underwent a change; and, after the lapse of five years, he prepared a treatise on the subject. It is a candid, able, learned, and every-way commendable performance, adhering to the general belief in witchcraft, but pointing out the errors in the methods of procedure in the Trials at Salem, showing that the principles there acted upon were fallacious. The book was not printed until 1702. Cotton Mather, having access to Mr. Hale's manuscript, professedly made up from it his account of the witchcraft transactions of 1692, inserted in the Magnalia, Book VI., Page 79. He adopts the narrative part of the work, substantially, avoiding much discussion of the topics upon which Mr. Hale had laid himself out. He cites, indeed, some passages from the argumentative part, containing marvellous statements, but does not mention that Mr. Hale labored, throughout, to show that those and other like matters, which had been introduced at the Trials, as proofs of spectral agency, were easily resolvable into the visions and vagaries of a "deluded imagination," "a phantasy in the brain," "phantasma before the eyes."

Mr. Hale limits the definition of a witch to the following: "Who is to be esteemed a capital witch among Christians? viz.: Those that being brought up under the means of the knowledge of the true God, yet, being in their right mind or free use of their reason, do knowingly and wittingly depart from the true God, so as to devote themselves unto, and seek for their help from, another God, or the Devil, as did the Devil's Priests and Prophets of old, that were magicians."—Page 127.

As he had refuted, and utterly discarded, the whole system of evidence connected with spectres of the living or ghosts of the dead, the above definition rescued all but openly profane, abandoned, and God-defying people from being prosecuted for witchcraft. Mather transcribes, as a quotation, what seems to be the foregoing definition, but puts it thus: "A person that, having the free use of reason, doth knowingly and willingly seek and obtain of the Devil, or of any other God, besides the true God Jehovah, an ability to do or know strange things, or things which he cannot by his own humane abilities arrive unto. This person is a witch."