It was, perhaps, to furnish materials for a reply to Calef that a circular from Harvard College, signed by Increase Mather as president, and by all the neighboring ministers as fellows, invited reports of "apparitions, possessions, enchantments, and all extraordinary things, wherein the existence and agency of the invisible world is more sensibly demonstrated," to be used "as some fit assembly of ministers might direct." But the "invisible world" was fast ceasing to be visible, and Cotton Mather laments that in ten years scarce five returns were received to this circular.
Yet the idea of some supernatural visitation at Salem was but very slowly relinquished, being still persisted in even by those penitent actors in the scene who confessed and lamented their own delusion and blood-guiltiness. Such were Sewell, one of the judges; Noyes, one of the most active prosecutors; and several of the jurymen who had sat on the trials. The witnesses upon whose testimony so many innocent persons had suffered were never called to any account. When Calef's letters were presently published in London, together with his account of the supposed witchcraft, the book was burned in the college yard at Cambridge by order of Increase Mather. The members of the Boston North Church came out also with a pamphlet in defence of their pastors. Hale, minister of Beverly, in his Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, and Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, though they admit there had been "a going too far" in the affair at Salem, are yet still as strenuous as ever for the reality of witchcraft.
Nor were they without support from abroad. Dr. Watts, then one of the chief leaders of the English Dissenters, wrote to Cotton Mather, "I am persuaded there was much agency of the devil in those affairs, and perhaps there were some real witches, too." Twenty years elapsed before the heirs of the victims, and those who had been obliged to fly for their lives, obtained some partial indemnity for their pecuniary losses. Stoughton and Cotton Mather, though they never expressed the least regret or contrition for their part in the affair, still maintained their places in the public estimation. Just as the trials were concluded, Stoughton, though he held the King's commission as lieutenant-governor, was chosen a counsellor—a mark of confidence which the theocratic majority did not choose to extend to several of the moderate party named in the original appointment—and to this post he was annually reëlected as long as he lived; while Moody, because he had favored the escape of some of the accused, found it necessary to resign his pastorship of the First Church of Boston, and to return again to Portsmouth.
Yet we need less wonder at the pertinacity with which this delusion was adhered to, when we find Addison arguing for the reality of witchcraft at the same time that he refuses to believe in any modern instance of it; and even Blackstone, half a century after, gravely declaring that "to deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament."
%ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND%
A.D. 1694
JOHN FRANCIS
Not only did the establishment of the Bank of England meet the demands of public exigency at the time; it also created an institution which was to become vitally important in the expanding life of the nation. This custodian of the public money and manager of the public debt of Great Britain is now the largest bank in the world. The only other financial institution that could show an equal record of long stability was the Bank of Amsterdam, which existed from 1609 to 1814.
The national debt of England began in 1693, when William III, in order to carry on the war against France, resorted to a system of loans. This debt, however, was not intended to be permanent; but when the Bank of England was established, the contracting of a permanent debt began. Its advantages and disadvantages to England have been discussed by many theorists and financial authorities. But of the extraordinary service rendered to Great Britain by the far-seeing Scotchman, William Paterson, originator of the plan of the Bank of England, there is no question, although, as Francis shows, the project at first met with opposition from many quarters.
The important position assumed by England, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, renders the absence of a national bank somewhat surprising. Under the sagacious government of Cromwell the nation had increased in commercial and political greatness; and although several projects were issued for banks, one of which was to have branches in every important town throughout the country, yet, a necessity for their formation not being absolutely felt, the proposals were dismissed. During the Protectorate, however, Parliament, taking into consideration the rate of interest, which was higher in England than abroad, and that the trade was thereby rendered comparatively disadvantageous to the English merchant, reduced the legal rate from 8 to 6 per cent., and this measure, although it had been carried by the Parliament of Cromwell, almost every act of which proved odious in the eyes of the Stuarts, was nevertheless confirmed by the legislature of Charles II. In 1546 the payment of interest had been rendered legal, and fixed at 10 per cent. In 1624 the rate had been reduced to 8 per cent.; and with the advance of commercial prosperity it had been found advisable to lower it still further.