[41] “A gentleman of more than ordinary understanding, learning and experience, desired me to write to New-England about your trials and convictions of witches; not being satisfied with the evidence upon which some who have been executed were found guilty. He told me, that in the time of the great reformation parliament, a certain person or persons had a commission to discover and prosecute witches. Upon these prosecutions many were executed, in at least one county in England, until, at length, a gentleman of estate and of great character for piety was accused, which put an end to the commission. And the judges upon a re-hearing, reversed many judgments; but many lives had been taken away. All that I speak with much wonder that any man, much less a man of such abilities, learning and experience as Mr. Stoughton, should take up a persuasion, that the devil cannot assume the likeness of an innocent, to afflict another person. In my opinion, it is a persuasion utterly destitute of any solid reason to render it so much as probable, and besides, contradictory to many instances of fact in history. If you think good, you may acquaint Mr. Stoughton and the other judges with what I write.” Letter from London to I. Mather, Jan. 9, 1692-3.
H.
[42] Richard Hatheway, a blacksmith’s apprentice, was tried before chief justice Holt, March 25, 1702, for imposture. He pretended to be bewitched by Sarah Morduck, and to be restored from his fits only by drawing blood from her by scratching. She had been tried for witchcraft by the same court the year before, and acquitted. He pretended to vomit pins, and to fast for ten weeks. “All the devils in hell,” said the chief justice, “could not have helped you fast so long.” Pins were found in his pocket; and being closely watched, it was ascertained that he partook of food when he assumed to be fasting. Another woman was brought in while he was in his fits, and by scratching her he recovered as well as before. He was sentenced to imprisonment for one year, and to stand in the pillory three times. Rev. Francis Hutchinson states the case in Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, London 2d edition, 1720, p. 280, and it appears in Wonders of the Invisible World, pp. 55 and 60. The case with the evidence and arguments is reported in Howell’s State Trials, vol. xiv. pp. 639-669. Hatheway’s master and mistress, who sustained the apprentice in these impostures, were next prosecuted for assault on Sarah Morduck and for riot; and their trial is reported in the same volume.
Howell’s State Trials contain full reports of other witchcraft proceedings, viz.: Case of Mary Smith, 1616, vol. ii. p. 1050; Proceeding against the Essex Witches, 1645, vol. iv. p. 817; and Proceedings against three Devon Witches, 1682, vol. viii. p. 1018.
P.
[43] Eleven trials for witchcraft were held before chief justice Holt, from 1694 to 1702, in which he so charged the juries that they generally brought in verdicts of acquittal. The English statutes for the punishment of witchcraft, however, were not repealed till 1736. 9 Geo. II. chap. 5, Statutes at Large, vol. xvii. p. 3.
P.
[44] “An Account of the Life and Character of Rev. Samuel Parris, of Salem village, and of his connection with the Witchcraft Delusion of 1692. By Samuel P. Fowler [of Danvers]” (Salem, 1857, 20 pp. 8vo.), is the fullest and most impartial estimate of Mr. Parris’s character which has appeared in print. Deacon Fowler is an officer of the original church of Salem village, now Danvers; he has the best collection of witch books in New-England, and is one of the most experienced antiquaries of the Essex Institute. He dispels much of the misapprehension which has existed respecting this noted clergyman.
Mr. Parris remained with his people for five years after these events, and in the midst of local disputes outside of the witchcraft tragedy. Mr. Fowler says (p. 19), “It seems there was always a majority of the parish in favor of Mr. Parris remaining with them; and there appears to have been a very general mistake with regard to his dismission from his people, they supposing that he was hastily driven away from the village; whereas he continued and maintained himself through a ministerial quarrel of five years, until he saw fit to discontinue it, when he informed his church of his intentions.”
Mr. Fowler’s entire paper is reprinted in Mr. Drake’s Witchcraft Delusion in New-England, vol. iii. pp. 198-221. The anonymous Ballad of 1692, Giles Corey and Goodwyfe Corey, which Mr. Drake reprints in the same volume (pp. 173-177), and supposes Mr. J. G. Whittier to have been the author—“as but one person could have written it”—was contributed to a Salem newspaper, more than thirty years ago, by Mr. Fitch Poole, of Danvers, now librarian of the Peabody Institute in Peabody.