SUPPLEMENT.
[The subject of Salem Witchcraft has been traced to its conclusion, and discussed within its proper limits, in the foregoing work. But whoever is interested in it as a chapter of history or an exhibition of humanity may feel a curiosity, on some points, that reasonably demands gratification. The questions will naturally arise, Who were the earliest to extricate themselves and the public from the delusion? what is known, beyond the facts mentioned in the progress of the foregoing discussion, of the later fortunes of its prominent actors? what the view taken in the retrospect by individuals and public bodies implicated in the transaction? and what opinions on the general subject have subsequently prevailed? To answer these questions is the design of this Supplement.]
IT can hardly be said that there was any open and avowed opposition in the community to the proceedings during their early progress. There is some uncertainty and obscurity to what extent there was an unexpressed dissent in the minds of particular private persons. On the general subject of the existence and power of the Devil and his agency, more or less, in influencing human and earthly affairs, it would be difficult to prove that there was any considerable difference of opinion.
The first undisguised and unequivocal opposition to the proceedings was a remarkable document that has recently come to light. Among some papers which have found their way to the custody of the Essex Institute, is a letter, dated "Salisbury, Aug. 9, 1692," addressed "To the worshipful Jonathan Corwin, Esq., these present at his house in Salem." It is indorsed, "A letter to my grandfather, on account of the condemnation of the witches." Its date shows that it was written while the public infatuation and fury were at their height, and the Court was sentencing to death and sending to the gallows its successive cartloads. There is no injunction of secresy, and no shrinking from responsibility. Although the name of the writer is not given in full, he was evidently well known to Corwin, and had written to him before on the subject. The messenger, in accordance with the superscription, undoubtedly delivered it into the hands of the judge at his residence on the corner of Essex and North Streets. The fact that Jonathan Corwin preserved this document, and placed it in the permanent files of his family papers, is pretty good proof that he appreciated the weight of its arguments. It is not improbable that he expressed himself to that effect to his brethren on the bench, and perhaps to others. What he said, and the fact that he was holding such a correspondence, may have reached the ears of the accusers, and led them to commence a movement against him by crying out upon his mother-in-law.
The letter is a most able argument against the manner in which the trials were conducted, and, by conclusive logic, overthrows the whole fabric of the evidence on the strength of which the Court was convicting and taking the lives of innocent persons. No such piece of reasoning has come to us from that age. Its author must be acknowledged to have been an expert in dialectic subtleties, and a pure reasoner of unsurpassed acumen and force. It requires, but it will reward, the closest attention and concentration of thought in following the threads of the argument. It reaches its conclusions on a most difficult subject with clearness and certainty. It achieves and realizes, in mere mental processes, quantities, and forces, on the points at which it aims, what is called demonstration in mathematics and geometry.
The writer does not discredit, but seems to have received, the then prevalent doctrines relating to the personality, power, and attributes of the Devil; and, from that standpoint, controverts and demolishes the principles on which the Court was proceeding, in reference to the "spectral evidence" and the credibility of the "afflicted children" generally. The letter, and the formal argument appended to it, arrest notice in one or two general aspects. There is an appearance of their having proceeded from an elderly person, not at all from any marks of infirmity of intellect, but rather from an air of wisdom and a tone of authority which can only result from long experience and observation. The circumstance that an amanuensis was employed, and the author writes the initials of his signature only, strengthens this impression. At the same time, there are indications of a free and progressive spirit, more likely to have had force at an earlier period of life. In some aspects, the document indicates a theological education, and familiarity with matters that belong to the studies of a minister; in others, it manifests habits of mind and modes of expression and reasoning more natural to one accustomed to close legal statements and deductions. If the production of a trained professional man of either class, it would justly be regarded as remarkable. If its author belonged to neither class, but was merely a local magistrate, farmer, and militia officer, it becomes more than remarkable. There must have been a high development among the founders of our villages, when the laity could present examples of such a capacity to grasp the most difficult subjects, and conduct such acute and abstruse disquisitions. [See [Appendix].]
The question as to the authorship of this paper may well excite interest, involving, as it does, minute critical speculations. The elements that enter into its solution illustrate the difficulties and perplexities encompassing the study of local antiquities, and attempts to determine the origin and bearings of old documents or to settle minute points of history. The weight of evidence seems to indicate that the document is attributable to Major Robert Pike, of Salisbury. Whoever was its author did his duty nobly, and stands alone, above all the scholars and educated men of the time, in bearing testimony openly, bravely, in the very ears of the Court, against the disgraceful and shocking course they were pursuing.[I]
William Brattle, an eminent citizen and opulent merchant of Boston, and a gentleman of education and uncommon abilities, wrote a letter to an unknown correspondent of the clerical profession, in October, 1692. It is an able criticism upon the methods of procedure at the trials, condemning them in the strongest language; but it was a confidential communication, and not published until many years afterwards. He says that "the witches' meetings, the Devil's baptisms and mock sacraments, which the accusing and confessing witches oft speak of, are nothing else but the effect of their fancy, depraved and deluded by the Devil, and not a reality to be regarded or minded by any wise man." He charges the judges with having taken testimony from the Devil himself, through witnesses who swore to what they said the Devil communicated to them, thus indirectly introducing the Devil as a witness; and he clinches the accusation by quoting the judges themselves, who, when the accusing and confessing witnesses contradicted each other, got over the difficulty by saying that the Devil, in such instances, took away the memory of some of them, for the moment, obscuring their brains, and misleading them. He sums up this part of his reasoning in these words: "If it be thus granted that the Devil is able to represent false ideas to the imaginations of the confessors, what man of sense will regard the confessions, or any of the words of these confessors?" He says that he knows several persons "about the Bay,"—men, for understanding, judgment, and piety, inferior to few, if any, in New England,—that do utterly condemn the said proceedings. He repudiates the idea that Salem was, in any sense, exclusively responsible for the transaction; and affirms that "other justices in the country, besides the Salem justices, have issued out their warrants;" and states, that, of the eight "judges, commissioned for this Court at Salem, five do belong to Suffolk County, four of which five do belong to Boston, and therefore I see no reason why Boston should talk of Salem as though their own judges had had no hand in these proceedings in Salem."