In concluding his report of the trial of this wretched woman, whose children were thus made to become the instruments for procuring her death, Dr. Cotton Mather expresses himself in the following language:—
"This rampant hag (Martha Carrier) was the person of whom the confessions of the witches, and of her own children among the rest, agreed that the Devil had promised her that she should be queen of Hell."
It is quite evident that this "rampant hag" had no better opinion of the dignitaries and divines who managed matters at the time than they had of her. The record of her examination shows that she was not afraid to speak her mind, and in plain terms too. When brought before the magistrates, the following were their questions and her answers. The accusing witnesses having severally made their charges against her, declaring that she had tormented them in various ways, and threatened to cut their throats if they would not sign the Devil's book, which, they said, she had presented to them, the magistrates addressed her in these words: "What do you say to this you are charged with?" She answered, "I have not done it." One of the accusers cried out that she was, at that moment, sticking pins into her. Another declared that she was then looking upon "the black man,"—the shape in which they pretended the Devil appeared. The magistrate asked the accused, "What black man is that?" Her answer was, "I know none." The accusers cried out that the black man was present, and visible to them. The magistrate asked her, "What black man did you see?" Her answer was, "I saw no black man but your own presence." Whenever she looked upon the accusers, they were knocked down. The magistrate, entirely deluded by their practised acting, said to her, "Can you look upon these, and not knock them down?" Her answer was, "They will dissemble, if I look upon them." He continued: "You see, you look upon them, and they fall down." She broke out, "It is false: the Devil is a liar. I looked upon none since I came into the room but you." Susanna Sheldon cried out, in a trance, "I wonder what could you murder thirteen persons for." At this, her spirit became aroused: the accusers fell into the most intolerable outcries and agonies. The accused rebuked the magistrate, charging him with unfairness in not paying any regard to what she said, and receiving every thing that the accusers said. "It is a shameful thing, that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits;" and, turning to those who were bringing these false and ridiculous charges against her, she said, "You lie: I am wronged." The energy and courage of the prisoner threw the accusers, magistrates, and the whole crowd into confusion and uproar. The record closes the description of the scene in these words: "The tortures of the afflicted were so great that there was no enduring of it, so that she was ordered away, and to be bound hand and foot with all expedition; the afflicted, in the mean while, almost killed, to the great trouble of all spectators, magistrates, and others."
Parris closes his report of this examination as follows:—
"Note.—As soon as she was well bound, they all had strange and sudden ease. Mary Walcot told the magistrates that this woman told her she had been a witch this forty years."
This shows the sort of communications the girls were allowed to hold with the magistrates, exciting their prejudices against accused persons, and filling their ears with all sorts of exaggerated and false stories. However much she may have been maligned by her neighbors, some of whom had long been in the habit of circulating slanders against her, the whole tenor of the papers relating to her shows that she always indignantly repelled the charge of being a witch, and was the last person in the world to have volunteered such a statement as Mary Walcot reported.
The examination of Martha Carrier must have been one of the most striking scenes of the whole drama of the witchcraft proceedings. The village meeting-house presented a truly wild and exciting spectacle. The fearful and horrible superstition which darkened the minds of the people was displayed in their aspect and movements. Their belief, that, then and there, they were witnessing the great struggle between the kingdoms of God and of the Evil One, and that every thing was at stake on the issue, gave an awe-struck intensity to their expression. The blind, unquestioning confidence of the magistrates, clergy, and all concerned in the prosecutions, in the evidence of the accusers; the loud outcries of their pretended sufferings; their contortions, swoonings, and tumblings, excited the usual consternation in the assembly. In addition to this, there was the more than ordinary bold and defiant bearing of the prisoner, stung to desperation by the outrage upon human nature in the abuse practised upon her poor children; her firm and unshrinking courage, facing the tempest that was raised to overwhelm her, sternly rebuking the magistrates,—"It is a shameful thing that you should mind these folks that are out of their wits;"—her whole demeanor, proclaiming her conscious innocence, and proving that she chose chains, the dungeon, and the scaffold, rather than to belie herself. Seldom has a scene in real life, or a picture wrought by the inspiration of genius and the hand of art, in its individual characters or its general grouping, surpassed that presented on this occasion.
Hutchinson has preserved the record of another examination of a different character. An ignorant negro slave-woman was brought before the magistrates. She was cunning enough, not only to confess, but to cover herself with the cloak of having been led into the difficulty by her mistress.
"Candy, are you a witch?—Candy no witch in her country. Candy's mother no witch. Candy no witch, Barbados. This country, mistress give Candy witch.
"Did your mistress make you a witch in this country?—Yes: in this country, mistress give Candy witch.