I was at a loss until I met with this return, by what law they proceeded.[63] The old constitution was dissolved; no laws of the colony were in force, witchcraft is no offence by the common law of England. The statute of James I. was indeed more ancient than the colony charter, but no statute had ever been adopted here. The General Assembly had not then met, and there could have been no provision made by a Province law, but it seems by the eighth section that the English statutes were made the rule upon this extraordinary occasion. But what authority the court had to change the sentence from burning to hanging, I cannot conceive. Before the other trials the law against witchcraft under the first charter was established with the other Colony laws. The authority by which the court sat may as well be called in question. No authority is given by the Province charter to any powers short of the whole General Court to constitute courts of justice. The Governor indeed, with the consent of the Council, appoints judges, commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, and all officers belonging to the courts. It is strange they did not tarry until the Assembly met. A judge shall not be punished for mere error of judgment, but it certainly behooves him, in a trial for life especially, to consider well by what authority he acts.
The court was held again by adjournment at Salem, June 30. Six [five] women were brought upon trial, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes.[64] The court and jury seemed to have had no difficulty with any but Nurse. She was a church member, and probably her good character caused the jury to bring in a verdict not guilty; but the accusers making a very great clamor and the court expressing their dissatisfaction with the verdict, the jury desired to go out again, and then brought her in guilty. The foreman of the jury gave the following certificate to satisfy her relations what induced an alteration of the verdict.
“July 4th, 1692.
“I Thomas Fisk, the subscriber hereof, being one of them that were of the jury the last week at Salem court, upon the trial of Rebekah Nurse, &c. being desired, by some of the relations, to give a reason why the jury brought her in guilty, after the verdict not guilty; I do hereby give my reasons to be as follows, viz.:
“When the verdict, not guilty, was [given], the honoured court was pleased to object against it, saying to them, that they think they let slip the words which the prisoner at the bar spake against herself, which were spoken in reply to Goodwife Hobbs and her daughter, who had been faulty in setting their hands to the Devil’s book, as they had confessed formerly; the words were, ‘What do these persons give in evidence against me now? they used to come among us?’ After the honoured court had manifested their dissatisfaction of the verdict, several of the jury declared themselves desirous to go out again, and thereupon the honoured court gave leave; but when we came to consider the case, I could not tell how to take her words as an evidence against her, till she had a further opportunity to put her sense upon them, if she would take it; and then going into court, I mentioned the words aforesaid, which by one of the court were affirmed to have been spoken by her, she being then at the bar, but made no reply nor interpretation of them; whereupon, these words were to me a principal evidence against her.
Thomas Fisk.”
Nurse, being informed of the use which had been made of her words, gave in a declaration to the court, that “when she said Hobbs and her daughter were of her company, she meant no more than that they were prisoners as well as herself; and that, being hard of hearing, she did not know what the foreman of the jury said.” But her declaration had no effect.
The minister of Salem Mr. [Nicholas] Noyes was over zealous in these prosecutions. He excommunicated this honest old woman after her condemnation. One part of the form seems to have been unnecessary, delivering her over to Satan. He supposed she had delivered herself up to him long before. But her life and conversation had been such, of which many testimonies were given, that the remembrance of it, as soon as the people returned to the use of their reason, must have wiped off all the reproach which had been occasioned by the manner of her death.
Calef, who when he wrote was generally supposed to be under unreasonable prejudice against the country, which lessened the credit of his narrative, says that at the trial of Sarah Good, one of the afflicted fell into a fit, and after recovery cried out that the prisoner had stabbed her and broke the knife in doing it, and a piece of the knife was found upon the afflicted person; but a young man declared that the day before he broke that very knife and threw away a piece of it, this afflicted person being then present; and adds that the court bid her tell no more lies, but went on notwithstanding this fraud to improve her as a witness against other prisoners.[65] This account, if true, would give me a more unfavorable opinion even of the integrity of the court, if I had not met with something not unlike to it in the trials before Sir Matthew Hale. The afflicted children in their fits upon the least touch from Rose Cullender, one of the supposed witches, would shriek out, which they would not do when touched by any other person. Lest there should be any fraud, Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon, Sergeant Keeling and other gentlemen attended one of the girls whilst she was in her fits at another part of the hall, and one of the witches was brought, and an apron put before the girl’s eyes, but instead of the witch’s hand another person’s hand was taken to touch the girl, who thereupon shrieked out as she used to do. The gentlemen returned and declared to the court they believed the whole was an imposture. The witch was found guilty notwithstanding, and the judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict and awarded sentence accordingly.
Susannah Martin had been suspected, ever since 1669, so that a great number of witch stories were told of her, and many of them given in evidence. One of the other being told by the minister at the place of execution, that he knew she was a witch, and therefore advised her to confess, she replied that he lied, and that she was no more a witch than he was a wizard, and if he took away her life, God would give him blood to drink.