The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-30 00:00:00

SALEM WITCHCRAFT.

(From the Anylo-American Tines.)
In the number just issued of the Edinburgh Re-
view there is a painfully interesting article grounded
on Charles W. Upham's researches into Salem Witch-
craft, which, in two volumes, he has lately given to
the world. In 1831 C. W. Upham, then minister at
Salem, delivered a course of lectures on Witchcraft.
The interest they excited was so great that they were

printed, and an edition almost immediately sold.

Being thus encouraged he devoted himself earnestly
to mastering the strange history, and soon dis-
covered how erroneous were the general impressions,
and how imperfect his own lectures, which he with-
drew from circulation. After years of labour, aided
by his sons, he brought out the present work, which
the reviewer asserts to be a piece of history as

accurate as has ever been written of the New Eng-

land or any other States. To attain his point he

reproduced this Massachusetts township as it ac-
tually stood at the period of his tale. His was no
fancy sketch, for through old records of depositions

taken by the courts before the trial, " to be kept in
perpetual remembrance," the fullest statement of
crime was at hand ; he traced back the old families
and the estates they occupied ; he marked out the
old boundaries, he laid down the roads, the forest,
the clearing, till not only had he a perfect picture
of the people, but a perfect chart of the district.
The settlement had its birth in 1620, the date of the

charter granted by James 1., and the efforts of the
company which had undertaken to colonize Massa-
chusetts was to people the distant land with a goodly
sectionof society. The title of landlord distinguished
the most dignified, and the eldest of the family of the

old planters, and goodman or goodwife, abbreviated
to goody, were titles of honour, signifying the heads
of households. In a religious community like that
of Puritan Massachusetts the minister was a per-
son of no ordinary weight, and from the difficulty
experienced by Salem Village in securing an inde-
pendent pastor for itself, we may judge how jeal-
ously such authority was bestowed. In 1670 twenty
farmers of the township petitioned for a minister,
but it was not granted till two years afterwards, as
a concession to avoid greater privilege, but with the
restriction that no minister was to be permanently

settled without permission of the old church at Sa-
lem to proceed to his ordination. Out of this re-
striction grew the trouble ; for the community who
had left England for the purpose of living their ewn
religious life in America could ill endure the con-

,roc. In 1679 the authorities at Salem endeavoured

;o force ➢lr. Bayley on Salem Village, but eventu-

ally they were defeated after a struggle which left

behind it the seeds of bitterness. These Mr. Bur-

roughs, who succeeded, found growing like thorns
and briars around him. Mr. Bayley's friends re-
garded Mr. Burroughs with an evil eye, and, though
an excellent pastor, and one well adapted to the
early days of a settlement, when men lived in the
momentary expectation of a raid from the Indians,
the times on which he had fallen may be judged
from his career. Being suffered to sink into want,
and unable to supply his household with common
necessaries, he retired, but was afterwards arrested
for a debt which proved to be his wife's funeral ex-
penses. When released he retired to Maine,.but
in the days of the approaching tragedy he was re-
called, charged with sorcery on the most childish
evidence, and executed in 1692. One witness,
a girl, poured out her remorse to him the
day before he died. This noble-minded man freely
forgave and prayed with her, and he ended his
career beloved and respected by all not under the
curse of bigotry. The third minister was Mr.
Deodat Lawson, notable for his sermon on the Devil,
extensively circulated in England, where he died, de-
scribed as " the unhappy," not long after the cir-
cumstances we are about to relate. Mr. Parris
followed in 1669, and he was the prime mover in
the events which have given so mournful an inte-
rest to Salem. He was quarrelsome, greedy, and
unscrupulous—one of those who took whatever
means were open to attain their selfish ends. No
sooner had he been installed than he commenced to
turn things to his own advantage, at the same time
that he bitterly complained of the provision made
for him. however hateful may be the cha-
racter of Mr. Parris, both the historian and the re-
viewer appear to have overlooked the fact that,
judging from the instance of Mr. Burroughs, the
maintenance at Salem Village was wholly inade-
quate even for a self-denying minister of the Gos-
pel. A greedy man with such a source of trouble
working on a community with the religious impres-
sions of the day might cause much mischief, and
this may be estimated by our tale. Throughout
Massachusetts, indeed in the Puritan world, the
Devil was a potent power, who worked through
human agency. The air was peopled with spirits,
the forest filled, and the settlements invaded by his
emissaries. The Red Indian embodied his likeness ;
but what the godly had most to fear were those he
had pressed into his own service from their midst.
A murrain was the work of a witch, and any misfor-
tune, however traceable to the plainest causes, was as
easily ascribed to her, while the phenomena of nature,
droughts, torrents, thunderstorms, and tornadoes
were of course her work. Satan, foiled in his malice
in Puritan England, had pursued them to America,
where they were all in great danger from, his wiles.
Notwithstanding the proved injustice of many exe-
cutions for witchcraft the age believed in it as we
believe in murders. William Penn presided at the
trial of two Swedish women in Philadelphia, whose
escape by a legal informality was indignantly hailed
by the public, as was that of Charlotte Windsor by
us. The case of Mrs. Higgins, the wife of a pro-
nsinent citizen of Boston and the sister of the
deputy governor of Massachusetts, a woman of
superior talent and of excellent character, was
hanged as a witch in 1656—a fearful case of
iniquity, and known to be so by the better class of
the inhabitants. A Roman Catholic Irishwoman had
been hanged at Boston in 1684 for bewitching four
children named Goodwin, but notwithstanding
such executions the people were often compelled to
resort to prayer, fasting, and humiliation under an
edict of the civil authorities " in consideration of
the extent to which Satan prevails amongst us with
respect to witchcraft." Mr. Parris had lived in
the West Indies, whence he had brought some
slaves, of whom two were Indians, named John,
and Tituba, his wife. The evil commenced by the
formation of a class of young girls, from eight to
eighteen years of age, who were instructed in
his house, and there imbibed a morbid influ-
ence which Mr. Upham finds it difficult to
account for. They developed an extraordi-
nary knowledge of the reported workings of witches
in all countries, and they so acted their part
as to confound the elders and dignitaries of the
land, to terrify the congregations, and to startle
from their propriety the judges on the bench. The
elders were assembled to see the troupe go through
their exercises, and groaned in spirit over the chil-
dren, who grew bold on the interest excited, and in
church openly interrupted the service and blas-
phemed aloud. Passionate intercession was made,
but in vain, for the afflicted. The first step was to
learn who had stricken them down, but then no
names were given, and when this stage was reached,
Sarah Good, a poor, ignorant woman, was selected.
She was examined on the Ist March, 1692, among
others, and carried to gaol, though the evidence
against her was to the last degree puerile. A phe-
nomenon was early seen which more than anything
amazed Mr. Upham, the belief by the victims in the
reality of the crime, and even in many instances
the confession of guilt. But Sarah Good, although
she believed in the truth of the affliction and even
accused a fellow-prisoner, felt the injustice in her
own case. Conscious of innocence, sensible of
oppression and outrage, with indignation roused,
when accused by Mr. Noyes and urged to confes-
sion, she replied to his declaration that " she knew
she was a witch," " You are a liar. lam no more
a witch than you are a wizard ; and if you take
away my life God will give you blood to
drink." Hutchinson states that in his day there
was a tradition among the people of Salem,
whiohhaa descended to tho present time, that

the manner of Mr. Noyes' death strongly veri-
fied the .prediction. He was corpulent, and of
a plethoric habit, and died of an internal hemor-
rhage, bleeding profusely at the mouth. Her little
daughter Dorcas, four years old, was shortly after
accused of pinchings, bitings, seratchings, &c., and
carried to prison, where she was chained with her
mother, but, as there is no account of her execution,
she is believed to have escaped. Twenty years after
Sarah Good had been hanged on Witch's Hill, the
Crown granted £3O to her representatives as com-
pensation for her execution by mistake, and against
evidence.

About the time of the execution of Charles 1., a
devout family, named Towne, emigrated to Salem,
from Norfolk, England. There were three daugh-
ters; Rebecca, who was much the elder, Sarah, and
Mary. At the period of which we write, Rebecca,
then the wife of Francis Nurse, was between 70
and 80, a great-grandmother, and landlord Nurse
had divided his estate between his four sons and
three sons-in-law. She was a woman of the very
highest character, who had walked till her old age
in the paths of rectitude, and was greatly esteemed
among the community. Her sister Mary, then 58
years of age, was the wife of Goody Easty, who
owned a large farm, and by whom she had seven
children. Sarah, the younger, had married twice,
and was then the wife of Peter Cloyse. Land-
lord Nurse was among those who desired to
see Mr. Parris out of the place, and, as the
"afflicted'' throve by lying, as Titus Oats had
thriven, like him in success they flew at higher
game, and their flight was directed against Rebecca.
Incredibly absurd stories were told of her, and the
children wound up with the assertion that if she
was examined the devil's marks would be found on
her, and she was examined by a committee of
women, which was followed on the 22d March by
her being accused before the magistrates, in the
crowded Meeting House. Wearied out after long
cross-questioning, confused, and utterly perplexed,
the head of the old lady fell on her shoulder ;
instantly all the "afflicted" bad twisted necks, and
rude hands seized the gentlewoman's head to set it
right. She was carried to gaol and put in irons,
and Mr. Parris 44:improved the occasion" by accus-
ing her of murder, employing for this purpose the
case of Mrs. Ann Putnam. Mr. Upham gives the
evidence at length to shoW its quality, and all
efforts ended only in a charge that she had so railed
at a neighbour for allowing his pigs to get into her
field that some short time after he fell down in a
fit, and never recovered, " dispatched by a cruel
death—murdered by Goody Nurse." The story,
which we must delay to our next issue, is calculated to
bring tears into the eyes of stern men, and deep and
lasting sorrow into the heart of humanity, for never
had a community so singularly favoured, so deeply
imbued with religion, exempt in no ordinary degree
from the chief temptations of the world, fallen
into crime more hideous, indeed, rivalling in the
degree in which a small colony could the horrors of
the French Revolution.