[80] Brattle, ut supra, 65, 72, 78.
[81] This confession is cited from Hutchinson, History of Massachusets-Bay, ii. pp. 31–33.
[82] This was the commonly received opinion, and though opposed by Increase Mather, was much insisted on by Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, and proved the destruction of many; as, if an innocent person could not be personated, it followed that those who were accused by the possessed were certainly guilty. Cf. Brattle, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, vol. v. 61 ff., on spectral evidence, and the bigotry and unfairness of Stoughton. Increase Mather, Some Cases of Conscience concerning Evil Spirits.
[83] Hutchinson, ii. 49. Mather, Cotton, Wonders of the Invisible World, 65–70.
[84] It is interesting, though painful, to find as a prominent witness against Bishop, one Samuel Shattuck, the son of the Quaker who, thirty years before, had delivered to Endicott the order from Charles II. which had freed himself and his friends from the extremes of Puritan cruelty.
[85] Mather, Increase, D. D., Cases of Conscience concerning Evil Spirits, Postscript.
[86] Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World.
[87] Brattle, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, v. 66, 67. The case of Elizabeth How, mentioned above, is a good example of the way in which neighborhood quarrels and church quarrels were dragged in. She had had a falling out with a family by the name of Perley some two years before, and they now came forward with depositions that she had bewitched their cows so that they gave no milk, and one of their children so that it pined away. “After this,” swears Samuel Perley, “the abovesaid goode how had a mind to ioyn to ipswich church thai being unsatisfied sent to us to bring in what we had against her and when we had declared to them what we knew thai see cause to Put a stop to her coming into the church. Within a few dais after I had a cow wel in the morning as far as we knew this cow was taken strangli runing about like a mad thing a litle while and then run into a great Pon and drowned herself and as sone as she was dead mi sons and miself towed her to the shore, and she stunk so that we had much a doe to flea her.”
The ministers of Rowley investigated the case of the Perley child, and were evidently convinced that the parents had put the idea into the child’s head, and gave plain testimony to that effect, and several neighbors came forward with testimony to the prisoner’s good character. But a fresh collection of marvels was adduced by a family of the name of Comins or Cummins who accused her of bewitching their horses, and other neighbors, not to be outdone, testified to other strange occurrences, and the court condemned her and she was executed on the sixteenth of July. She was, however, only convicted upon the evidence obtained in Parris’s investigation, though the testimony of her Ipswich neighbors undoubtedly had great weight with the jury. The other trials are of much the same character, some revealing a most fiendish animosity on the part of neighbors or relatives, and leaving a very painful impression of the condition of country life in New England at that time. For testimony as to the cowardice of friends and neighbors and the confessions extorted from weak-minded persons, see letter of Francis Dane, Sen.; Woodward, Records, II., 66–68.
[88] Brattle, ut supra 68, 69.