Question by the Court: "What do you say, Goodman Procter, to these things?"
Answer: "I know not: I am innocent."
Abigail Williams, another of the afflicted, cries out, "There is Goodman
Procter going to Mrs. Pope!" and "immediately said Pope falls into a fit."
A magistrate to Procter: "You see the devil will deceive you; the children," so all the afflicted were called, "could see what you were going to do before the woman was hurt. I would advise you to repentance, for you see the devil is bringing you out."
Abigail Williams cries out again, "There is Goodman Procter going to hurt Goody Bibber!" and "immediately Goody Bibber falls into a fit." Abigail Williams and Ann Putnam both "made offer to strike at Elizabeth Procter; but when Abigail's hand came near, it opened, whereas it was made up into a fist before, and came down exceedingly lightly as it drew near to said Procter, and at length, with open and extended fingers, touched Procter's hood very lightly; and immediately Abigail cries out, 'My fingers, my fingers, my fingers burn!' and Ann Putnam takes on most grievously of her head, and sinks down."
Such was the evidence upon which people were believed to be witches, and committed to prison to be tried for their lives! Yet, let us not hurry too much to triumph over the past. In these days of animal magnetism, have we not ourselves seen imposture as gross, and even in respectable quarters a headlong credulity just as precipitate? We must consider also that the judgments of our ancestors were disturbed, not only by wonder, but by fear.
Encouraged by the ready belief of the magistrates and the public, "the afflicted" went on enlarging the circle of their accusations, which presently seemed to derive fresh corroboration from the confessions of some of the accused. Tituba had been flogged into a confession; others yielded to a pressure more stringent than blows. Weak women, astonished at the charges and contortions of their accusers, assured that they were witches beyond all doubt, and urged to confess as the only possible chance for their lives, were easily prevailed upon to repeat any tales put into their mouths: their journeys through the air on broomsticks to attend witch sacraments—a sort of travesty on the Christian ordinance—at which the devil appeared in the shape of a "small black man"; their signing the devil's book, renouncing their former baptism, and being baptized anew by the devil, who "dipped" them in "Wenham Pond," after the Anabaptist fashion.
Called upon to tell who were present at these sacraments, the confessing witches wound up with new accusations; and by the time Phipps arrived in the colony, near a hundred persons were already in prison. The mischief was not limited to Salem. An idea had been taken up that the bewitched could explain the causes of sickness; and one of them, carried to Andover for that purpose, had accused many persons of witchcraft, and thrown the whole village into the greatest commotion. Some persons also had been accused in Boston and other towns.
It was one of Governor Phipps' first official acts to order all the prisoners into irons. This restraint upon their motions might impede them, it was hoped, in tormenting the afflicted. Without waiting for the meeting of the General Court, to whom that authority properly belonged, Phipps hastened, by advice of his counsel, to organize a special court for the trial of the witches. Stoughton, the Lieutenant-governor, was appointed president; but his cold and hard temper, his theological education, and unyielding bigotry were ill qualifications for such an office. His associates, six in number, were chiefly Boston men, possessing a high reputation for wisdom and piety, among them Richards, the late agent, Wait Winthrop, brother of Fitz-John Winthrop, and grandson of the former Governor, and Samuel Sewell, the two latter subsequently, in turn, chief-justices of the province.
The new court, thus organized, proceeded to Salem, and commenced operations by the trial of an old woman who had long enjoyed the reputation of being a witch. Besides "spectral evidence," that is, the tales of the afflicted, a jury of women, appointed to make an examination, found upon her a wart or excrescence, adjudged to be "a devil's teat." A number of old stories were also raked up of dead hens and foundered cattle and carts upset, ascribed by the neighbors to her incantations. On this evidence she was brought in guilty, and hanged a few days after, when the court took an adjournment to the end of the month.