Barnard Peach made oath substantially as follows:—
"That about six or seven years past, being in bed on a Lord's-day night, he heard a scrambling at the window, and saw Susanna Martin come in at the window, and jump down upon the floor. She was in her hood and scarf, and the same dress that she was in before, at meeting the same day. Being come in, she was coming up towards this deponent's face, but turned back to his feet, and took hold of them, and drew up his body into a heap, and lay upon him about an hour and a half or two hours, in all which time this deponent could not stir nor speak; but, feeling himself beginning to be loosened or lightened, and he beginning to strive, he put out his hand among the clothes, and took hold of her hand, and brought it up to his mouth, and bit three of the fingers (as he judges) to the breaking of the bones; which done, the said Martin went out of the chamber, down the stairs, and out of the door. The deponent further declared, that, on another Lord's-day night, while sleeping on the hay in a barn, about midnight the said Susanna Martin and another came out of the shop into the barn, and one of them said, 'Here he is,' and then came towards this deponent. He, having a quarter-staff, made a blow at them; but the roof of the barn prevented it, and they went away: but this deponent followed them, and, as they were going towards the window, made another blow at them, and struck them both down; but away they went out at the shop-window, and this deponent saw no more of them. And the rumor went, that the said Martin had a broken head at that time; but the deponent cannot speak to that upon his own knowledge."
Any one who has had the misfortune to be subject to nightmare will find the elements of his own experience very much resembling the descriptions given by Kembal, Downer, Ring, and Peach. The terrors to which superstition, credulity, and ignorance subjected their minds; the frightful tales of witchcraft and apparitions to which they were accustomed to listen; and the contagious fears of the neighborhood in reference to Susanna Martin, taken in connection with a disordered digestion, an overloaded stomach, and a hard bed, or a strange lodging-place,—are wholly sufficient to account for all the phenomena to which they testified.
[I] The facts and considerations in reference to the authorship of the letter to Jonathan Corwin may be summarily stated as follows:—
The letter is signed "R.P." Under these initials is written, "Robert Pain," in a different hand, and, as the ink as well as the chirography shows, at a somewhat later date. R.P. are blotted over, but with ink of such lighter hue that the original letters are clearly discernible under it. A Robert Paine graduated at Harvard College, in 1656. But he was probably the foreman of the grand jury that brought in all the indictments in the witchcraft trials; and therefore could not, from the declarations in the letter itself, have been its author. The only other person of that name at the time, of whom we have knowledge, was his father, who seems, by the evidence we have, to have died in 1693. (That date is given in the Harvard Triennial for the death of Robert Paine, the graduate; but erroneously, I think, as signatures to documents, and conveyances of property subsequently, can hardly be ascribed to any other person.) Robert Paine, the father, from the earliest settlement of Ipswich, had been one of the leading men of the town, apparently of larger property than any other, often its deputy in the General Court, and, for a great length of time, ruling elder of the church. "Elder Pain," or Penn, as the name was often spelled, enjoyed the friendship of John Norton, and all the ministers far and near; and religious meetings were often held at his house. We know nothing to justify us in saying that he could not have been the author of this paper; but we also know nothing, except the appearance of his name upon it, to impute it to him.
The document is dated from "Salisbury." So far as we know, Elder Paine always lived in Ipswich; although, having property in the upper county, he may have often been, and possibly in his last years resided, there. It is, it is true, a strong circumstance, that his name is written, although by a late hand, under the initials. It shows that the person who wrote it thought that "R.P." meant Robert Paine; but any one conversant especially with the antiquities of Ipswich, or this part of the county, might naturally fall into such a mistake. The authorship of documents was often erroneously ascribed. The words "Robert Pain" were, probably, not on the paper when the indorsement was made, "A letter to my grandfather," &c. Elder Robert Paine, if living in 1692, was ninety-one years of age. The document under consideration, if composed by him, is truly a marvellous production,—an intellectual phenomenon not easily to be paralleled.
The facts in reference to Robert Pike, of Salisbury, as they bear upon the question of the authorship of the document, are these: He was seventy-six years of age in 1692, and had always resided in "Salisbury." The letter and argument are both in the handwriting of Captain Thomas Bradbury, Recorder of old Norfolk County. On this point, there can be no question. Bradbury and Pike had been fellow-townsmen for more than half a century, connected by all the ties of neighborhood and family intermarriage, and jointly or alternately had borne all the civic and military honors the people could bestow. The document was prepared and delivered to the judge while Mrs. Bradbury was in prison, and just one month before her trial. Pike, as has been shown (p. 226), was deeply interested in her behalf. The original signature ("R.P.") has the marked characteristics of the same initial letters as found in innumerable autographs of his, on file or record. There are interlineations, beyond question in Pike's handwriting. These facts demonstrate that both Pike and Bradbury were concerned in producing the document.
The history of Robert Pike proves that he was a man of great ability, had a turn of mind towards logical exercises, and was, from early life, conversant with disputations. Nearly fifty years before, he argued in town-meeting against the propriety, in view of civil and ecclesiastical law, of certain acts of the General Court. They arraigned, disfranchised, and otherwise punished him for his "litigiousness:" but the weight of his character soon compelled them to restore his political rights; and the people of Salisbury, the very next year, sent him among them as their deputy, and continued him from time to time in that capacity. At a subsequent period, he was the leader and spokesman of a party in a controversy about some ecclesiastical affairs, involving apparently certain nice questions of theology, which created a great stir through the country. The contest reached so high a point, that the church at Salisbury excommunicated him; but the public voice demanded a council of churches, which assembled in September, 1676, and re-instated Major Pike condemning his excommunication, "finding it not justifiable upon divers grounds." On this occasion, as before, the General Court frowned upon and denounced him; but the people came again to his rescue, sending him at the next election into the House of Deputies, and kept him there until raised to the Upper House as an Assistant. He was in the practice of conducting causes in the courts, and was long a local magistrate and one of the county judges.
He does not appear to have been present at any of the trials or examinations of 1692; but his official position as Assistant caused many depositions taken in his neighborhood to be acknowledged and sworn before him. While entertaining the prevalent views about diabolical agency, he always disapproved of the proceedings of the Court in the particulars to which the arguments of the communication to Jonathan Corwin apply,—the "spectre evidence,"—and the statements and actings of "the afflicted children." There are indications that sometimes he saw through the folly of the stories told by persons whose depositions he was called to attest. One John Pressy was circulating a wonderful tale about an encounter he had with the spectre of Susanna Martin. Pike sent for him, and took his deposition. Pressy averred, that, one evening, coming from Amesbury Ferry, he fell in with the shape of Martin in the form of a body of light, which "seemed to be about the bigness of a half-bushel." After much dodging and manœuvring, and being lost and bewildered, wandering to and fro, tumbling into holes,—where, as the deposition states, no "such pitts" were known to exist,—and other misadventures, he came to blows with the light, and had several brushes with it, striking it with his stick. At one time, "he thinks he gave her at least forty blows." He finally succeeded in finding "his own house: but, being then seized with fear, could not speak till his wife spoke to him at the door, and was in such a condition that the family was afraid of him; which story being carried to the town the next day, it was, upon inquiry, understood, that said Goodwife Martin was in such a miserable case and in such pain that they swabbed her body, as was reported." He concludes his deposition by saying, that Major Pike "seemed to be troubled that this deponent had not told him of it in season that she might have been viewed to have seen what her ail was." The affair had happened "about twenty-four years ago." Probably neither Pressy nor the Court appreciated the keenness of the major's expression of regret. It broke the bubble of the deposition. The whole story was the product of a benighted imagination, disordered by fear, filled with inebriate vagaries, exaggerated in nightmare, and resting upon wild and empty rumors. Robert Pike's course, in the case of Mrs. Bradbury, harmonizes with the supposition that he was Corwin's correspondent.
Materials may be brought to light that will change the evidence on the point. It may be found that Elder Paine died before 1692: that would dispose of the question. It may appear that he was living in Salisbury at the time, and acted with Pike and Bradbury, they giving to the paper the authority of his venerable name and years. But all that is now known, constrains me to the conclusion stated in the text.