Notwithstanding some slight cautions about trusting too much to spectral evidence, Mather's book, which professed to be published at the special request of the Governor, was evidently intended to stimulate to further proceedings. But, before its publication, the reign of terror had already reached such a height as to commence working its own cure. The accusers, grown bold with success, had begun to implicate persons whose character and condition had seemed to place them beyond the possibility of assault. Even "the generation of the children of God" were in danger. One of the Andover ministers had been implicated; but two of the confessing witches came to his rescue by declaring that they had surreptitiously carried his shape to a witches' meeting, in order to create a belief that he was there. Hale, minister of Beverly, had been very active against the witches; but when his own wife was charged, he began to hesitate. A son of Governor Bradstreet, a magistrate of Andover, having refused to issue any more warrants, was himself accused, and his brother soon after, on the charge of bewitching a dog. Both were obliged to fly for their lives. Several prisoners, by the favor of friends, escaped to Rhode Island, but, finding themselves in danger there, fled to New York, where Governor Fletcher gave them protection. Their property was seized as forfeited by their flight. Lady Phipps, applied to in her husband's absence on behalf of an unfortunate prisoner, issued a warrant to the jailer in her own name, and had thus, rather irregularly, procured his discharge. Some of the accusers, it is said, began to throw out insinuations even against her.
The extraordinary proceedings on the commitments and trials; the determination of the magistrates to overlook the most obvious falsehoods and contradictions on the part of the afflicted and the confessors, under pretence that the devil took away their memories and imposed upon their brain, while yet reliance was placed on their testimony to convict the accused; the partiality exhibited in omitting to take any notice of certain accusations; the violent means employed to obtain confessions, amounting sometimes to positive torture; the total disregard of retractions made voluntarily, and even at the hazard of life—all these circumstances had impressed the attention of the more rational part of the community; and, in this crisis of danger and alarm, the meeting of the General Court was most anxiously awaited.
When that body assembled, a remonstrance came in from Andover against the condemnation of persons of good fame on the testimony of children and others "under diabolical influences." What action was taken on this remonstrance does not appear. The court was chiefly occupied in the passage of a number of acts, embodying some of the chief points of the old civil and criminal laws of the colony. The capital punishment of witchcraft was specially provided for in the very terms of the English act of Parliament. Heresy and blasphemy were also continued as capital offences. By the organization of the Superior Court under the charter, the special commission for the trial of witches was superseded. But of this Superior Court Stoughton was appointed chief justice, and three of his four colleagues had sat with him in the special court.
There is no evidence that these judges had undergone any change of opinion; but when the new court proceeded to hold a special term at Salem for the continuation of the witch trials a decided alteration in public feeling became apparent. Six women of Andover renounced their confessions, and sent in a memorial to that effect. Of fifty-six indictments laid before the grand jury, only twenty-six were returned true bills. Of the persons tried, three only were found guilty. Several others were acquitted, the first instances of the sort since the trials began.
The court then proceeded to Charlestown, where many were in prison on the same charge. The case of a woman who for twenty or thirty years had been reputed a witch, was selected for trial. Many witnesses testified against her; but the spectral evidence had fallen into total discredit, and was not used. Though as strong a case was made out as any at Salem, the woman was acquitted, with her daughter, granddaughter, and several others. News presently came of a reprieve for those under sentence of death at Salem, at which Stoughton was so enraged that he left the bench, exclaiming, "Who it is that obstructs the course of justice I know not; the Lord be merciful to the country!" nor did he again take his seat during that term.
At the first session of the Superior Court at Boston the grand jury, though sent out to reconsider the matter, refused to find a bill even against a confessing witch.
The idea was already prevalent that some great mistakes had been committed at Salem. The reality of witchcraft was still insisted upon as zealously as ever, but the impression was strong that the devil had used "the afflicted" as his instruments to occasion the shedding of innocent blood. On behalf of the ministers, Increase Mather came out with his Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcraft, in which, while he argued with great learning that spectral evidence was not infallible, and that the devil might assume the shape of an innocent man, he yet strenuously maintained as sufficient proof confession, or "the speaking such words or the doing such things as none but such as have familiarity with the devil ever did or can do." As to such as falsely confessed themselves witches, and were hanged in consequence, Mather thought that was no more than they deserved.
King William's veto on the witchcraft act prevented any further trials; and presently, by Phipps' order, all the prisoners were discharged. To a similar veto Massachusetts owes it that heresy and blasphemy ceased to appear as capital crimes on her statute-book.
The Mathers gave still further proof of faith unshaken by discovering an afflicted damsel in Boston, whom they visited and prayed with, and of whose case Cotton Mather wrote an account circulated in manuscript. This damsel, however, had the discretion to accuse nobody, the spectres that beset her being all veiled. Reason and common-sense at last found an advocate in Robert Calef, a citizen of Boston, sneered at by Cotton Mather as "a weaver who pretended to be a merchant." And afterward, when he grew more angry, as "a coal sent from hell" to blacken his character—a man, however, of sound intelligence and courageous spirit. Calef wrote an account, also handed about in manuscript, of what had been said and done during a visitation of the Mathers to this afflicted damsel, an exposure of her imposture and their credulity, which so nettled Cotton Mather that he commenced a prosecution for slander against Calef, which, however, he soon saw reason to drop.
Calef then addressed a series of letters to Mather and the other Boston ministers, in which he denied and ridiculed the reality of any such compacts with the devil as were commonly believed in under the name of witchcraft. The witchcraft spoken of in the Bible meant no more, he maintained, than "hatred or opposition to the word and worship of God, and seeking to seduce therefrom by some sign"—a definition which he had found in some English writer on the subject, and which he fortified by divers texts.