A notorious witch-finder, says Dr Increase Mather, undertook by a pin to make an infallible discovery of suspected persons. If, when the pin was pushed an inch or two into the flesh, no blood appeared, nor any sense of pain, then he declared them to be witches. No less than three hundred persons, says that respectable author, were thus condemned in that kingdom. This miscreant was Matthew Hopkins, who styled himself witch-finder general, and travelled from town to town with a train of assistants, for the professed purpose of detecting witches, charging twenty shillings for each town. He affected to have uncommon skill in his profession, but treated his subjects with great cruelty, keeping them from sleep, wearying them to distress by constant walking to force confession. He also adopted the mode of swimming them while cross-bound. But the cruel wretch finally met his just deserts; he was treated as he had treated hundreds of others, being thrown into the water cross-bound; but, although able to swim as a witch, he was suffered to escape from the country. It is greatly to be lamented, that a considerable number of Calvinistic divines should take zealous concern in the prosecution of reputed witches. Among those pious divines, we find the venerable names of Baxter and Calamy, in England, and the two Mathers in America. That they were conscientious, and influenced by the purest motives, no one will doubt; but that they were imbued with a large share of the credulity of the times, will appear most evident. The following are Mr Baxter’s own words as quoted by Sir Walter Scott. ‘The hanging of a great number of witches in 1645 and 1646, is famously known. Mr Calamy went along with the judges on the circuit, to hear their confessions, and see there was no fraud or wrong done them. I spoke with many understanding, pious, learned, and credible persons, that lived in the counties, and some that went to them in the prisons, and heard their sad confessions. Among the rest an old reading parson, named Lewis, was one that was hanged, who confessed that he had two imps, and that one of them was always putting him upon doing mischief; and he being near the sea, as he saw a ship under sail, it moved him to send it to sink the ship; and he consented, and saw the ship sink before them.’ The Rev. Mr Lewis was condemned on his own simple confession, that he sent his imp to sink a ship, but it was not known that any ship was lost, and it was supposed that the man was deranged in his intellect. Mr Baxter relates another story of a mother, who gave her child an imp like a mole, and told her to keep it in a can near the fire, and she would never be in want.
The Catholic priests were remarkable for their zealous pretensions to peculiar powers in dispossessing demons, by fasting and prayer, and they were detected in numerous frauds. It was probably from their reports that the story originated which Dr Mather cites in his cases of conscience, that at the time when Martin Luther died, all the possessed people in the Netherlands became quiet and at ease. The devils in them said the reason was, that Luther had been a great friend of theirs, and they owed him so much respect as to go as far as Germany to attend his funeral, and on the mention of some ministers of the reformed religion, the devils in the possessed laughed and said, that they and the Calvinists were very good friends. There were among the Protestants some clergymen base enough to become rivals with papists in their pretended exorcisms. The following is an instance of unprecedented turpitude. In 1689, Richard Dugdale, of Lancaster, was reported by a clergyman as having been dispossessed of devils, by fasting and prayer. He had for several months exhibited, at intervals, apparent sufferings, both surprising and unaccountable. He would counterfeit the demoniac, epileptic, and a train of nervous fits, and unnatural afflictions, which were attributed to demons. His singular condition excited the curiosity and wonder which he and his vile minister desired, and his supposed sufferings called forth the sympathy, and his indigent circumstances the charity of his numerous deluded visitors. By these means he was encouraged to persevere in his deception, living at ease on the delusion which he and his minister had artfully created about a year. When at length complaint was made to the Bishop of London, who brought Dugdale to confess that he had acted the part of an impostor, and that he had, from time to time, received private lessons of instruction from the clergyman, to carry on the imposition, that he might have the credit of dispossessing the devil, by his fastings and prayers.
In the trials for witchcraft, says Dr Hutchinson, an unpardonable partiality was manifested, owing to the vulgar prejudices among the people. The English statute against witchcraft and sorcery interdicts all acts of sorcery whatever, and all charms for employing spirits; yet, for discovering a reputed witch, the accusers were allowed to use charms which must have their force, if any at all, from the same diabolical power. This is unprecedented partiality, and directly contrary to the statute. Whether such compacts are real or imaginary, they ought to be punished equally on both sides. The number of witches, and the supposed dealings of spirits, have been found to increase and decrease according to the laws and principles subsisting at the time and place. Since philosophy and learning have prevailed, we have had but little trouble about witches and sorcerers, except that created by the superstitious imagination of men. We may have as many devils in our day as they had in other ages, for we have as many murders, robberies, false accusations, and lies, and other crimes which are the devil’s works. Some are of opinion that the devil cannot really control the laws of nature, while others aver, that the laws of nature are a mere jest with him. It has been denied that he possesses power to transform a man or woman into a cat, but Dr Henry More believed he could, and describes the manner in which he transforms them. It is difficult to conceive how Dr More acquired such knowledge; but we shall never believe that Satan is the ruler of our world. We have no reason to imagine that God has endowed him with miraculous powers; he cannot, therefore, impart such powers to others; consequently, there can be no such creature as a witch. All illusive fancies of witchcraft may be clearly explained on the principles of mental philosophy and sound and enlightened reason. The confessions of witches have so often been extorted, so often the effects of distraction, and so often been found contrary to plain truth and sober reason, that no dependence should be placed on them. Dr Hutchinson asserts, that it may be plainly proved, from scripture and reason, that there never was a witch, such as we mean, who can send devils, diseases, and destruction, among the people. The spectral evidence made use of in courts, is far from being legal proof, it is of no sort of weight, nor should it be regarded as anything more than dreams. The confessions of ignorant old women, ought to have been entirely rejected; some were extorted, many were impossible, and all ridiculous and incredible.
The Rev. Dr Holmes, in his American Annals, observes, that our fathers, before the world was enlightened by learning and philosophy, loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witches and prodigies, charms and enchantment. There was not a village in England, he observes, that had not a ghost in it; the church-yards were all haunted, every large common had a circle of fairies belonging to it, and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit.
The dreadful contagion was at length permitted to afflict the puritans of New England, and our revered ancestors were involved in a series of tragical events, and overwhelmed with the most appalling apprehensions. A retrospect to that sorrowful period creates painful impressions; but however revolting the transactions in those days of melancholy delusion, we are not without the consoling hope, that our pious fathers were guided by a conscientious spirit in their proceedings and condemnations. The people of New England were naturally of a grave and serious cast, and remarkably prone to the most rigid and sacred construction on all the events of Providence, and too often their sentiments were biassed by enthusiasm and superstition. The books containing narratives of trials of witches and sorcerers in England, had been received here, and could not fail of making a deep impression on the public mind. Hence it is not strange that there should be a close coincidence between the English witches and those reputed such in New England, and that they should suffer a similar fate. So violent was the popular prejudice against every appearance of witchcraft, that it was deemed meritorious to denounce all that gave the least reason for suspicion. Every child and gossip were prepared to recognise a witch, and no one could be certain of personal safety. As the infatuation increased, many of the most reputable females, and several males also, were apprehended and committed to prison. There is good reason to believe, that, in some instances, the vicious and abandoned, availed themselves of opportunities of gratifying their corrupt passions of envy, malice, and revenge. The English judge, Sir Matthew Hale, so eminently distinguished for his knowledge in the law, and his exemplary piety, was most highly estimated here, and knowing that he had condemned some persons in England, his opinion had great influence with both judges and juries.
In a publication in 1767, by the Rev. John Hale, of Beverly, it appears that the first person who suffered in New England for witchcraft was a woman in Charlestown; and in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, (Vol. V. second series) it is recorded, that ‘in June 1648, one Margaret Jones of Charlestown, was executed for a witch. She was proved to have such a malignant touch, that whomsoever she touched with any affection of displeasure, were taken presently after with deafness, vomiting, or other violent sickness. Soon after she was executed, a ship riding over against Charlestown, of three hundred tons, having in her hold an hundred and twenty tons of ballast, and eighty horses aboard her for the Barbadoes, was on a sudden observed to roll as if she would have turned over. The husband of that witch lately executed had desired passage in that ship to Barbadoes, which not obtaining, that accident was observed to follow. Notice being given of this to the magistrates, then sitting in court at Boston, a warrant was sent to apprehend him, and as the officer was passing therewith over the ferry, one asked if he could not tame the vessel, seeing he could sometimes tame men; he answered, I have that here, which, it may be, will tame her and make her quiet, showing his warrant, and at the same instant, the ship began to stop her motion, and swim upright, which had continued rolling, after a strange manner about twelve hours, and after Jones was in prison she never moved in that kind any more.’
Another, executed not long after, was a Dorchester woman; she also positively denied being guilty. The next was a woman of Cambridge, against whom a principal evidence was a nurse, who testified that the accused did bewitch a child to death; for the woman made much of the child, being perfectly well, but quickly changed its color, and it died in a few hours after. The woman denied her guilt to the last moment. In 1655, Mrs Hibbens, widow of an assistant, or counsellor, was executed at Boston. This gave great dissatisfaction to several principal persons, and it was believed that her death saved the lives of many other inferior persons. About the same time, two or three at Springfield, and one at Hartford, were executed, two of whom confessed themselves guilty. The next that suffered was in 1662, a woman named Greensmith, and her husband with her; who confessed, but he denied guilt. Two other were put to the water ordeal, but being found to float on the water like cork, were permitted to fly from New England. This ridiculous experiment appears to have been soon after abandoned. In 1663, Mary Johnson was tried and hanged. She said the devil appeared to her, and cleaned her hearth of ashes, and hunted the hogs out of the corn. In 1688, a female named Glover, an Irish papist, was hung for bewitching four children of one John Goodwin, of Boston. This affair was attended by such extraordinary circumstances as to arrest a general interest and sympathy. Goodwin was a man of unexceptionable moral character, and his children were religiously educated, and discovered mild and amiable tempers. ‘These children,’ says the celebrated Dr Cotton Mather, ‘were arrested by a stupendous witchcraft. The eldest, a daughter thirteen years old, was first seized with odd fits, in appearance diabolical; it was not long before one of her sisters, and two brothers, were similarly affected.’ They were at times deaf, dumb, and blind. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, and then pulled out upon their chins. Their mouths were thrown open with great violence, and then the jaws clapped together again with a force like that of a spring lock, and all their limbs and joints were strangely distorted. They made piteous outcries that they were cut with knives, and struck with blows. The ministers of Boston and Charlestown, had recourse to fasting and prayer, and during the devotions, the children it is said were deprived of hearing; but the youngest child was entirely relieved. The poor ignorant woman, above mentioned, was suspected of employing demons to afflict these children; she was arrested, and committed to jail in chains. On her trial she rather bragged than denied her guilt, but she would converse only in Irish, though she understood the English language very well. Her house being searched, several images and puppets, or babies made of rags and stuffed with goat’s hair, were found, and she confessed that her way to torment the objects of her malice, was by wetting her finger with spittle and stroking those little images. The afflicted children were present in court, and the woman appeared to be greatly agitated. One of the images being presented to her, she oddly and quickly snatched it into her hand, and instantly one of the children fell into a fit. The judges ordered a repetition of the experiment, with the same result. Being asked if she had any one to stand by her as a friend, she replied that she had, and looking round in the air, she added, no, he is gone. The night after, she was heard expostulating with the devil for his deserting her, telling him that because he had served her so basely and falsely, she had confessed all. The court appointed several physicians to examine whether she was in any degree crazed in her intellect; but they pronounced her sane, and the court passed sentence of death upon her, and she was executed. After the condemnation of the woman, Dr Mather made her many visits; she declined answering his questions, or attending to his prayers, pretending that her spirits would not consent to it. At her execution she said the afflicted children should not be relieved by her death, as others were concerned in it; accordingly the three children continued to be tormented. They frequently discerned spectres around them, and when a blow was aimed at the place where they saw the spectre, the boy always felt the blow in the part of his body answering to that stricken at, and it was very credibly affirmed that a dangerous woman or two in the town, received blows thus given to their spectres. At length, the children would bark at each other like dogs, and pur like so many cats. They would complain that they were in a hot oven, or roasting on an invisible spit, and that knives were cutting them. They would complain of blows from a great cudgel, and though we could see no cudgels, we could see the marks of the blows in red streaks upon their skin. They would complain that their heads were nailed to the floor, and it required more than ordinary strength to pull them from thence. They would be so limber sometimes, that it was judged every bone might be bent, and anon so stiff, that a joint could not be moved. Sometimes they would fly like geese, with incredible swiftness, through the air, their arms waving, like the wings of birds, and the feet scarcely touching the ground once in twenty feet. The sight of the Bible, and all religious discourse, would throw them into distressing fits. Dr Mather took the eldest of these children into his own family, that he might have opportunity to observe the doings of Satan more critically; but unhappily his own imagination was so continually haunted by ideas of wicked demons and witches, that he was unconscious of the imposition he was suffering. When he prayed, her hands with a strong force would be clapped upon her ears, and if pulled away by force she would cry out. She complained that she had Glover’s chain round her leg, and would imitate her in her gait. An invisible chain would be clapped about her, and she would, in much pain and fear, cry out when they put it on. Sometimes we could with our hands knock it off as it began to be fastened. But when it was on she would be pulled out of her seat, with such violence that it was difficult to keep her out of the fire. I may add, says the learned, but credulous doctor, that the demons put an unseen rope with a cruel noose about her neck, by which she was choked till she was black in the face, and though it was got off before it killed her, yet there were the red marks of it, and of a finger and thumb, remaining for some time. She once said, if she could steal or get drunk, she would be well. At one time an invisible horse was brought to her, and she would put herself in the posture of a riding woman. She would in her chair throw herself into a riding posture, sometimes ambling, sometimes trotting, and sometimes galloping very furiously, and attempting to ride up stairs. Dr Mather observes, that the girl having learned that he was about to prepare a sermon on the occasion of the witchcraft, became very turbulent and insolent, constantly endeavoring to interrupt his studying the sermon. In prayer time, the demons would throw her on the floor, where she would whistle and sing to drown the voice, and attempt to kick and strike the speaker. But to conclude this tedious story. At Christmas, says the doctor, this girl and her sister in another house, were by the demons made very drunk, though the people in the house were well satisfied that it was without strong drink. They imitated, with wonderful exactness, the actions of one drunk in speaking, and reeling, and vomiting, and anon sleeping, till they recovered. These children were all restored to their natural health, and lived to adult age. Governor Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, says he was acquainted with the eldest daughter; she sustained an unblemished character; but he believes she never made any confession of fraud or imposition in this transaction.
Hutchinson was truly an excellent historical writer, whatever may have been his political principles and conduct as chief magistrate. From the history and from the collections of the Historical Society, I copy the following narrative, with the view of evincing to what extent artful children may impose on credulous persons.
In the year 1720, there was at Littleton, in the county of Middlesex, a family who were supposed to be bewitched. One J. B. had three daughters, eleven, nine, and five years old. The eldest was a forward and capable girl, and having read and heard many strange stories, would surprise the company by her manner of relating them. Pleased with the applause, she went from some she had heard to some of her own framing, and so on to dreams and visions, and attained the art of swooning, and of being, to all appearance, breathless. Upon her revival she would relate strange things she had met with in this and other worlds. When she met with the word God, and other solemn words in the Bible, she would drop down as if dead. Strange and unaccountable noises were often heard in, and upon the house, stones came down the chimney and did considerable mischief. She complained of the spectre of Mrs D—y, a woman in the town, and once she desired her mother to strike at a place where she said there was a yellow bird, and she said to her mother, you have hit the side of its head, and it appeared that Mrs D—y’s head was hurt about the same time. Another time the mother struck at the place where the spectre was, and the girl said, you have struck her on the bowels, and on inquiry it was found, that Mrs D—y complained of a hurt on her bowels about the same time. It was common to find her in ponds of water, crying out she should be drowned; sometimes upon the top of the house, and again upon the tops of trees, pretending she had flown there, and some fancied they had seen her in the air. There were often the marks of blows and pinches upon her, which were supposed to come from an invisible hand. The second daughter, after her sister had practised the art for some months, and had succeeded so well, imitated her in complaints of Mrs D—y, and outdid her in feats of climbing the barn and trees, ascending where she could not descend without assistance with a ladder. What was most surprising, the youngest, of five years old only, attempted the same feats and in some instances went beyond her sisters. The neighbors agreed they were under an evil hand, and it was pronounced witchcraft, as certain as there ever had been at Salem. Physicians had been at first employed, but to no purpose, and afterwards ministers and elders were called to pray over them, but without success. The children had numerous visitors, and the more they were pitied, the more loud and constant were their moans and distractions; few spectators suspected that they were acting the part of perverse and wicked impostors. The afflicted parents treated them with all possible care and tenderness, believing that they were objects of pity and compassion. At length Mrs D—y, not long after the supposed blows from the mother, sickened and died, and the two oldest girls ceased complaining; the youngest held out longer, but all persisted in it that there had been no fraud. But their consciences, that inward monitor, finally severely lashed and tortured them. The eldest, for some years, wore a gloominess upon her mind, and when questioned by her parents and others on the subject, she would artfully turn the discourse. Not having been baptised, she applied to a minister for baptism, who examined her closely relative to the affair, telling her she was suspected of falsehood and fraud; but this she denied and asserted her innocence. In 1728, having removed to Medford, she applied to Rev. Mr Turell, to be admitted into his church. She gave him a very good account of the state of her soul, and discoursed sensibly and religiously respecting her past temper and conversation in life. Mr Turell knew nothing of her having been an actor in the fraud above detailed, and propounded her for full communion. The next Sabbath, without any reference to her, he happened to preach from this text, ‘He that telleth lies shall not escape.’ The day before she was to be admitted into the church she visited Mr Turell in great distress and anguish of mind, inquiring of him what dreadful things he had heard about her, that made him preach so awfully against the practice of lying and liars. Mr Turell being much surprised, replied that no one had made any complaint against her and that he had no particular reference to her. With great grief she frankly confessed that she had been a great sinner, but was now awakened and convinced by the word preached, and that she was resolved no longer to conceal the truth, but confess it before God and man. She then proceeded to acknowledge herself guilty of the wicked deception which she had practised, bewailing and weeping bitterly for her egregious folly and wicked conduct. She then desired Mr Turell to draw up a suitable confession to be read before the congregation, and she would publicly own and acknowledge the same; which was accordingly done, and she was admitted to full communion, and ever after conducted in a manner becoming the Christian profession. She acknowledged to Mr Turell as follows: that the motives which excited her and her sisters to act the part of impostors, were from folly and pride. Finding that she pleased others or caused admiration, she was over pleased with, and admired herself, grew conceited and high minded. She thought to be able to deceive her parents and neighbors, was a fine accomplishment. She never dreamed of witchcraft in her case. The wounds, pinches, and bruises on their bodies, were from their own hands, and the noises and stones falling down the chimney, were the effects of their contrivance. She was often sorry she ever began the deception, but could not humble herself to desist, and was obliged to tell one lie to hide another. Her two sisters, she said, seeing her pitied had become actors also, with her, without being moved to it by her; but when she saw them follow her, they all joined in the secret and acted in concert, and thus during eight months their parents were kept in constant painful anxiety, and they were considered as objects of pity and compassion. They had no particular spite against Mrs D—y, but it was necessary to accuse some person, and the eldest having pitched upon her, the others followed. The woman’s complaints about the same time the girl pretended she was struck, proceeded from other causes which were not then properly inquired into. Once, at least, they were in great danger of being detected in their tricks; but the grounds of suspicion were overlooked through the indulgence and credulity of their parents.