Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply

by Charles Wentworth Upham

The learned Editor of the Fifth Volume of the Massachusetts Historical Collections, First Series, in a note to this passage (p. 76), says: "Supposed to be Mr. Willard." Such has always been the supposition. The Reviewer has undertaken to make it out that Cotton Mather is the person referred to by Brattle. These two men were opposed to each other, in the politics of that period. The course of the Mathers, in connection with the loss of the old, and the establishment of the new, Charter, gave rise to much dissatisfaction; and party divisions were quite acrimonious. The language used by Brattle, applauding the public course of the person of whom he was speaking, would be utterly inexplicable, if applied to Mather. The "endeavours, counsels, notions and proposals," to which he alludes, could not have referred to Mather's plans, which I have attempted to explain, because described by Brattle as being in "an ordinary way." "Unkindness, abuse, and reproach" find an explanation in the fact, that Willard was "cried out upon" and brought into peril of reputation and life, by the creatures of the prosecution. The monstrousness of the supposition that Mather was referred to, would hardly be heightened if it should appear that Brattle supplied Calef with materials in his controversy with Mather.

The language, throughout, is in conformity with the political relations between Brattle and Willard. The side the latter had espoused was put beyond question by the appearing, on the fifteenth of November, at Elisha Cook's Thanksgiving; and that was the same occupied by Brattle. But the question is settled by the fact that three of the Judges belonged to Willard's Congregation and Church, whereas only one belonged to the Church of the Mathers. The Reviewer says: "We do not assert that this inference is not the correct one." But, in spite of this substantial admission, with that strange propensity to overturn all the conclusions of history to glorify Cotton Mather, at the expense of others, and even, in this instance, against his own better judgment, he labors to make us believe—what he himself does not venture to "assert"—that the "spiritual relation" in which Mather stood to three of the Judges, was not, what, in those days and ever since, it has been understood to mean, that of a Pastor with his flock, but nothing more than intimate friendship. If this was what Brattle meant, he would have said at least four of the Judges, for, at that time, Sewall was in full accord with Mather. They took counsel together. It was at the house of Sewall that the preparation of the Wonders of the Invisible World was finally arranged with Mather; and he, alone, of all the side Judges, united with Stoughton, some days after the date of Brattle's letter, in endorsing and commending that work.

If the expression, "spiritual relations," is divorced from its proper sense, and made to mean sympathy of opinion or agreement in counsels, it ill becomes the Reviewer to try to make it out that Mather held that relation with any of the Judges. He represents him, throughout his article, as at sword's points with the Court. He says that he "denounced" its course, "as illegal, uncharitable, and cruel." There is, indeed, not a shadow of foundation for this statement, as to Mather's relation to the Court; but it absolutely precludes the Reviewer from such an interpretation as he attempts, of the expression of Brattle.

The Reviewer says: "If Mr. Mather is not alluded to, in this paragraph, he is omitted altogether from the narrative, except as spiritual adviser of the persons condemned."

This is an instance of the way in which this writer establishes history. Without any and against all evidence, in the license of his imagination alone, he had thrown out the suggestion that Mather attended the executions, as the ministerial comforter and counsellor of the sufferers. Then, by a sleight of hand, he transforms this "phantasy" of his own brain into an unquestionable fact.

If Mr. Mather is not alluded to in the following passage from Brattle's letter, who is? "I cannot but admire, that any should go with their distempered friends and relatives to the afflicted children to know what these distempered friends ail; whether they are not bewitched; who it is that afflicts them; and the like. It is true, I know no reason why these afflicted may not be consulted as well as any other, if so be that it was only their natural and ordinary knowledge that was had recourse to; but it is not on this notion that these afflicted children are sought unto; but as they have a supernatural knowledge—a knowledge which they obtain by their holding correspondence with spectres or evil spirits—as they themselves grant. This consulting of these afflicted children, as abovesaid, seems to me a very gross evil, a real abomination, not fit to be known in New England, and yet is a thing practiced, not only by Tom and John—I mean the ruder and more ignorant sort—but by many who profess high, and pass among us for some of the better sort. This is that which aggravates the evil and makes it heinous and tremendous; and yet this is not the worst of it, for, as sure as I now write to you, even some of our civil leaders and spiritual teachers, who, I think, should punish and preach down such sorcery and wickedness, do yet allow of, encourage, yea, and practice, this very abomination.

"I know there are several worthy gentlemen, in Salem, who account this practice as an abomination; have trembled to see the methods of this nature which others have used; and have declared themselves to think the practice to be very evil and corrupt; but all avails little with the abettors of the said practice."

Does not this stern condemnation fall on the head of the "spiritual teacher," who received constant communications from the spectral world, fastening the charge of diabolical confederacy upon other persons, in confidential interviews with confessing witches—not to mention the Goodwin girls;—whose boast it was, "it may be no man living has had more people, under preternatural and astonishing circumstances, cast by the Providence of God into his more particular care than I have had;" and that he had kept to himself information thus obtained, which, if he had not suppressed it, would have led to the conviction of "such witches as ought to die;" who sought to have the exclusive right of receiving such communications conferred upon him, "by the authority;" who, at that time, was holding this intercourse with persons pretending to spectral visions; and, the next year, held such relations with Margaret Rule?

The next evidence in support of the opinion that Cotton Mather was considered, at the time, as identified with the proceedings at Salem, in 1692, although circumstantial, cannot, I think, but be regarded as quite conclusive.

Immediately after the prosecutions terminated, measures began to be developed to remove Mr. Parris from his ministry. The reaction early took effect where the outrages of the delusion had been most flagrant; and the injured feelings of the friends of those who had been so cruelly cut off, and of all who had suffered in their characters and condition, found expression. A movement was made, directly and personally, upon Parris, in consequence of his conspicuous lead in the prosecutions; showing itself, first, in the form of litigation, in the Courts, of questions of salary and the adjustment of accounts. Soon, it broke out in the Church; and satisfaction was demanded, by aggrieved brethren, in the methods appropriate to ecclesiastical action. The charges here made against him were exclusively in reference to his course, at the Examinations and Trials, in 1692. The conflict, thus initiated, is one of the most memorable in our Church History. Parris and his adherents resisted, for a long time, the rightful and orderly demands of his opponents for a Mutual Council. At length, many of the Ministers, who sympathized with the aggrieved brethren, felt it their duty to interpose, and addressed a letter to Mr. Parris, giving him to understand that they were of opinion he ought to comply with the demand for a Council. This letter, dated the fourteenth of June, 1694, was signed by several of the neighboring Ministers, and by James Allen, of the First, and Samuel Willard, of the Old South, Churches, in Boston, but not by the Mathers. On the tenth of September, a similar letter was written to him, also signed by neighboring Ministers, and Mr. Allen, and Mr. Willard, but not by the Mathers.