Part 9

Calef [p. 101].

Calef [p. 103].

Samuel Sewall, one of the judges in the witchcraft trials, made, on this occasion, the following entry in his Diary—for the use of which I am indebted to the courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society: “Monday, Sept. 19, 1692. About noon, at Salem, Giles Corey was pressed to death for standing mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the court and Capt. Gardner of Nantucket, who had been his acquaintance; but all in vain. Sept. 20. Now I hear from Salem, that about eighteen years ago, he was suspected to have stamped and pressed a man to death; but was cleared. ’Twas not remembered till Ann Putnam was told of it by said Corey’s specter, the sabbath-day night before the execution.”

* * * * *

The following touching relation of the sufferings of the Corey family during the year 1692, is in Mass. Archives, vol. cxxxv. fol. 161. For the purpose of preserving the quaintness of the original document, I have copied it verbatim.

“To the Honrable Commite Apointed by the Generall Court to make enquire with Respect to the Suferings in The year 1692 &c.

“these are to giue you a Short Acount of our Sorrows and Suferings which was in the yere 1692. Some time in march our honerd father and mother Giles Corey & martha his wife ware acused for Suposed wichcraft and imprisoned and ware Remoued from one prison to another as from Salem to ipswitch & from ipswitch to boston and from boston to Salem againe and soe remained in close imprisonment about four months we ware att the whole Charge of their maintainance which was very chargable and soe much the more being soe farr adistant from us as also by Reason of soe many remoues in all which we could doe not less then Acompanie them which further added both to our trouble and Charge and although that was very Great in the least of our greavence or cause of These lines but that which breakes our harts and for which wee goe mourning still is that our father was put to soe cruell a death as being prest to death our mother was put to death also though in another way. And we Cannot Sufficiantly exspress our Griffe for the loss of our father and mother in such away. Soe we Cannot Compute our exspences and coast but shall Comite to your wisdome to iudge of but after our fathers death the Shirfe thretend to size our fathers estate and for feare tharof we Complied with him and paid him eleauen pound six shillings in monie by which we have bee greaty damnified & impouerishd by being exsposed to sell Creaturs and other things for litle more then half the worth of them to get the monie to pay as aforesd and to maintain our father & mother in prison but that which is grieueous to us is that wee are not only impouerished but also Reproached and soe may bee for all generatians and that wrongfully tow unless something bee done fore the remoueall thearof all which we humbly Committe to the honarable Court Praying God to direct to that which may be axceptable in his Sight and for the good of this land

“September the 13th 1710

“We Cannot Judge our necessary Expense to be less than Ten pounds

“Wee Subscrib your humbl Searuants in all Christian obedeance

“JOHN MOULTON who mared Elizabeth Corey daughtr of the abovesd in the behalf of the reast of that familie”

The author has already stated that the court chiefly relied on the decisions of Sir Matthew Hale, and the authorities of Keble, Dalton and other lawyers of note who lay down “rules of conviction as absurd as any ever adopted in New-England.” These illegal methods of procedure the judges certainly did not receive from the clergy, or from Perkins and Bernard, the clerical authorities recommended to them. Lord Campbell brings similar charges against Sir Matthew Hale, in connection with the Bury St. Edmund’s trial. He says, “he violated the plainest rules of justice, and really was the murderer of two innocent women.... I would very readily have pardoned him for an undoubted belief in witchcraft, and I should have considered that this belief detracted little from his character for discernment and humanity.... There not only was no evidence against them which ought to have weighed in the mind of any reasonable man who believed in witchcraft; but during the trial the imposture practised by the prosecutors was detected and exposed. The enormous violation of justice then perpetrated has become more revolting as the mists of ignorance, which partly covered it, have been dispersed.” (Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. i. p. 561, 563.)

The colony law against witchcraft was re-enacted October 29, 1692. The statute of King James I. was passed December 14, and published two days later. Both were disallowed by the Privy Council, Aug. 22, 1695; the latter for “being not found to agree with the statute of King James I., whereby the dower is saved to the widow, and the inheritance to the heir of the party convicted.” (Province Laws, 1869, vol. i. pp. 55, 91.)

The law was passed Nov. 25. December 7, William Stoughton was elected chief justice (receiving every vote present), and Thomas Danforth, John Richards, Wait Winthrop and Samuel Sewall, receiving only majorities as associate judges. December 22, they received their commissions.

Gov. Hutchinson states that the colony law against witchcraft was revived by the first act of the Provincial Assembly, passed June 15, and published June 28, 1692, providing “That all the local laws of Massachusetts Bay and New Plymouth, being not repugnant to the laws of England, do remain in full force, until the 10 day of November next.” As the charges alleged in the witchcraft trials were committed, and proceedings instituted, before June 28, and the special court was instructed, May 27, to proceed under English law and custom, it is probable that the court tried and executed every one of its victims under English law, the statute of James I. Trials were held after the old colony law was re-enacted; but no persons were executed after September 22, 1692.

Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, was also under suspicion. Judge Sewall, March 3, 1692-3, wrote to him a letter expressing disbelief in such reports, and sympathy for him and his family. The letter is in Judge Sewall’s Diary under that date.

“As to what you mention, concerning that poor creature in your town that is afflicted, and mentioned my name to yourself and son, I return you hearty thanks for your intimation about it, and for your charity therein mentioned; and I have great cause to bless God, who, of his mercy hitherto, hath not left me to fall into such an horrid evil.” Extract from letter [of Secretary Allen] to I. Mather, Hartford, 18 March, 92 [-3].

It is singular that Gov. Hutchinson did not give the date of this confession, which is noted in Calef. In this manuscript he says, “sometime after.” In the final draft he says, “it was not long before one of the judges was sensible of his error.” The confession was made January 14, 1696-7, nearly five years after the error was committed to which he alludes. Up to this time, he gave little or no evidence of contrition in his Diary. He was now under deep domestic affliction. Of his thirteen children he had lost eight. On the 25th of December, 1696, he buried his little Sarah, two years old, and on the 22d of May previous an infant son. His Diary shows that his mind was in a state of abject despondency. After the religious type of the period he regarded these repeated strokes of Divine Providence as brought upon him by his own unworthiness. On the 11th of January, three days before the appointed fast, he writes, “God helped me to pray more than ordinarily, that he would make up our loss in the burial of our little daughter and other children, and that would give us a child to serve him, pleading with him as the institutor of marriage, and the author of every good work.”

Calef (p. 144) gives an abstract from memory of Judge Sewall’s confession; and Dr. Abiel Holmes, who had seen the Diary, gives, in American Annals (vol. ii. p. 9), a brief extract. The following, copied, by permission, from his original Diary now in possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is the paper entire:

“Copy of the Bill I put up on the Fast Day, giving it to Mr. Willard as he passed by, and standing up at the reading of it, and bowing when finished, in the afternoon.

“Samuel Sewall, sensible of the reiterated strokes of God upon himself and family; and being sensible, that as to the guilt contracted upon the opening of the late Commission of Oyer and Terminer, at Salem (to which the order of this day relates), he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of, desires to take the blame and shame of it; asking pardon of men, and especially desiring prayers that God, who has an unlimited authority, would pardon that sin, and all other his sins, personal and relative: and according to his infinite benignity and sovereignty, not visit the sin of him, or of any other, upon himself or any of his, nor upon the land: but that he would powerfully defend him against all temptations to sin, for the future; and vouchsafe him the efficacious, saving conduct of his word and spirit.”

The following entry is the first indication I find in his diary, of sensitiveness or compunction for the part he took in the witchcraft trials. It was made December 24, 1696, while his little Sarah lay dead in his house: “Sam [his son] recites to me, in Latin, Matthew xii. from the 6th to the end of the 12th verse. The 7th verse [Quod si nossetis quid sit, misericordiam volo, et non sacrificium, non condemnassetis inculpabiles] did awfully bring to mind the Salem tragedy.”

The entire confession of Judge Sewall, its date and attending circumstances, will correct erroneous impressions concerning it. The subject matter confessed covers but one point: “the guilt contracted upon the opening of the late commission of Oyer and Terminer at Salem.” The court was opened June 2, 1692. We cannot be in doubt as to the nature of the guilt then contracted. It was the adoption of a rule of the court, by which the records made, and depositions received, at the preliminary examinations (which consisted almost wholly of spectral evidence), were introduced, sworn to, and received as legal testimony in the trials of the accused. Out of this rule, which was wholly illegal, grew all the fatal results of the Salem trials. Judge Sewall was a parishioner of Samuel Willard, of the Old South Church in Boston, who regarded such evidence as the “Devil’s testimony”; and whose judicious conduct during the trials is worthy of the highest commendation. He was the intimate friend of Increase and Cotton Mather, who both held similar views. Three days before (March 31), Cotton Mather had written to John Richards, one of the judges, cautioning him against the use of spectral testimony. The letter, although addressed to his own parishioner, was doubtless intended for, and considered by, the whole court, and is called, by himself and his son, the “letter to the judges.” The letter says: “If mankind have thus far once consented unto the credit of diabolical representations, the door is opened for the devils to obtain, from the courts in the invisible world, a license to proceed unto most hideous desolations upon the repute and repose of such as have been kept from the great transgression. Perhaps there are wise and good men, that may be ready to style him that shall advance this caution, a witch advocate; but, in the winding up, this caution will certainly be wished for.” (Mass. Soc.’s Hist. Coll., xxxviii. p. 393.) In the face of such influences and associations Judge Sewall gave his voice in the court for legalizing spectral testimony!

But for his confession we might never have known the position of Judge Sewall on the matter of spectral evidence, then the great question of debate in the Province; or have surmised the position of his three Boston associates, Richards, Winthrop and Sergeant. Saltonstall, living in Haverhill, did not attend the sittings of the court. The views of chief justice Stoughton in favor of admitting spectral testimony are well known; and those of the three Salem members of the commission, Hathorne, Corwin and Gedney, we have before us in the records of their examinations, than which nothing more atrocious can be imagined. If the four Boston members had stood out against the views of Stoughton and the Salem members, there had been a tie in the commission. Judge Sewall says, that, in the guilt contracted, “he is, upon many accounts, more concerned than any that he knows of.” How can this be? Was it a morbid utterance of his desponding mind; or has it an historical significance? He was not at the head of the court, nor its most influential member. Nothing appears to show that he was zealous, as Stoughton was, on this point. The remark would be explained, if he alone, of the Boston judges, went over to Stoughton’s views; and, by a majority vote, fixed the policy of the court. I know of no evidence outside the confession to sustain this hypothesis; and it is here thrown out only for the purpose of eliciting further information as to the position of the other three Boston judges. Brattle intimates that the members of the court were not a unit in their views. He says, “But although the chief judge and some of the other judges be very zealous in these proceedings,” &c. I have seen no evidence that Richards, Winthrop, or Sergeant, after the policy of the court was fixed, did not sustain the action of their associates. The two theories respecting diabolical agency, which were then the subject of debate, I have treated at some length in North American Review, vol. cviii. pp. 337-397.

October 17, 1711, the General Court passed an act reversing “the several convictions, judgments, and attainders against the” persons executed, and several who were condemned but not executed, and declaring that to be null and void. In December of the same year, £578. 12s. were appropriated to pay the damages sustained by persons prosecuted for witchcraft in 1692. The act reversing the attainder shows that the popular belief in the diabolical nature of the witchcraft troubles had not abated twenty years after those events transpired. The act is in Records of Salem Witchcraft, vol. ii. pp. 216-218. It commences thus: “Forasmuch as in the year of our Lord 1692, two several towns within this Province were infested with a horrible witchcraft, or possession of devils,” &c. “The influence and energy of the evil spirits so great at that time acting in and upon those who were the principal accusers and witnesses;” and that “some of the principal accusers and witnesses in those dark and severe prosecutions have since discovered themselves to be persons of profligate and vicious conversation”—were the reasons assigned for the reversal of the attainder.

As showing Gov. Hutchinson’s latest opinions on the question, whether the manifestations at Salem village were wholly the result of fraud and imposture, I append a supplementary paragraph with which he closes the narrative in his final draft.

“The opinion which prevailed in New-England for many years after this tragedy, that there was something preternatural in it, and that it was not all the effect of fraud and imposture, proceeded from the reluctance in human nature to reject errors once imbibed. As the principal actors went off the stage this opinion was gradually lessened; but perhaps it was owing to a respect to the memory of their immediate ancestor, that many do not seem to be fully convinced. There are a great number of persons who are willing to suppose the accusers to have been under bodily disorders which affected their imaginations. This is kind and charitable, but seems to be winking the truth out of sight. A little attention must force conviction that the whole was a scene of fraud and imposture begun by young girls, who at first, perhaps, thought of nothing more than being pitied and indulged, and continued by adult persons who were afraid of being accused themselves. The one and the other, rather than confess their fraud, suffered the lives of so many innocents to be taken away through the credulity of judges and juries.”

Transcriber’s Notes