The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1828-05-28

~, ot "ccasIoh, by Slow pressure to death
Inc Imagination of the people, powerfully at
lieu Oy these shocking examples, turned upo,
TLIg Dut the most gloomy and horrid ideas
The most extraordinary and innocent act;on
were metanorphosed into magical Ceremonies
ana the fury of the people augmented in pro
g ~, as this gloom of Imagination increased
ne lame spread with rage and rapidity pte
eVery part OF the country. Neither the tender
ness OF youth, nor the infrmity of are. nor tbe
Sacredness OF the ministry, nor the respectable
cohditlon Of fortune or character was the least
! protection. Children Of eleven years old were
.dheh up Tor sorceries. The women were strin.
M m the most shameful manner for magical teats
~ 1o scofDnctIc stains, common on the skins OF
I 9,G persons were called the devils pinches-
| ms was indisputabe evidence against thern
As such they admitted every idle fiying renort
ana even stories OF ghosts, which they henored
with name not found in our law books They
called them Spectral cUidence
What these extraordinary testimonies want.
ed was completed by the torture, by which a
number OF these unhappy victims were driven
TO confess whatever their tormentors thought
proper to dictate to them. Some women own
ed they had been lain with by the devil, and
! other things equally ridiculous and abominable
II is not difficult to imagine the deplorable
state OF the province, when mems lives depend
]
minds; whom revenge and malice had full op-
porSunIty OF wreaking themselves in most
dreadful and bloody manner, by an instrument
that was always in readiness, and to which the
pubic phrenzy gave certain and dangerous eff
iect. what was yet worse circumstance. the
wretches who suffered the torture, being not
more pressed to own themselves guilty than to
discover their associates and accomplices, una
BILE to give any real account, named people at
random who were Immediately taken up and
treated IN the same cruel manner upon this ex-
torted evidence. An universal terror and con-
sternation seized upon al, -some prevented ac-
eusation, and charged themselves with witch
craft, and so escaped death. Others fed the
province; and many more were preparing to
fly. The prisons were crowded people we're
executed dsily; yet the rage of the accusers
was as fres as ever, and the number of witches
and bewitched increased every hour. A mag
istrate who had committed forty persons for
this crime, fatigued with so disagreeable an en-
poyment, and ashamed for the share he had in
1t, refused TO grant any more warrants He
was himself accused of sorcery and thought
himself happy in leaving his family and fortune,
and escaping with life out of the province. A
jury, struck with the affecting manner, and the
solemn assurances of innocence, of woman
brought before them, ventured to acqut her :
but the Judges sent them in again, and in an
imperious manner forced them TO find the wo-
man guilty, and she was hanged Immediately.
The magistrates and ministers whose pru-
dence ought 10 have been employed in healing
this distemper, and assuaging its fury, threw in
new conlbusfible matter. They encouraged
The accusers, they assisted at the examination
anu tHey extoTUeu UHe CUIinesSiuI. vtIUnue.-
None slgnazed their zeal more upon this occa-
sion than Sir VIM. Phps the Governor, a New
r. A., - Al
meaner education who having raised fortune
by a lucky accident, was knighted, and afterwards
made governor of the province. Doctor Increase
Mather, and Doctor Cotton Mather, the pill
lars of the New England church, were equal
ly sanguine. Several of the most popular min
listers, after twenty executions had been made,
addressed Sir VIM. Phips with thanks for what
he had done, and with exhortations to proceed
in so laudabe work.
The aecusers encouraged in this manner did
not know where to stop, nor how to proceed.
They were at loss for objects. They began at
last to accuse the judges themselves. What was
worse, the nearest relations of Mr.. Increase
Mather we're involved, and witchcraf: began
even to approach the governors own family.
It was now high time to give another turn.
The accusers were discouraged by authority,
One hundred and fifty who lay in prison were
discharged Two hundred more were under
accusation; they were passed over and those
who had received sentence Of death, were re-
prieved, and in due time pardoned. A few cool
moments Showed them the gross and stupid er-
ror that had carried them away and which was
utterly invisible to them all the while they were
I engaged in this strange persecution. They
! grew heartily ashamed Of what they had done.
/ But what was infinitely Notifying, the Quakers
took occasion to attribute all this mischief to a
Judgment on them for persecution. A general
ast was appointed; praying God to pardon all
.he errsrs of his servants and people in tine late
tragedy, raised among them by Satan and his
I instruments.
! This was the last paroxysm of the puritanic
enthusiasm in New England. This violent fit
carried off so much Of that humor, that the peo-
lple there are grown somewhat like the rest of
mankind in their manners, and have much ahat-
ed of their prosecuting spirit.
1t is not an injurious speculation to consider
! these remarkable sallies of the human mind, out
of its ordinary course &laelo nations aifen
/ carried N'woy by what would never influence one
man of sense. The cause is originally weak, and
! to be suppressed without great difficulty but
/ then its weakness prevents any suspicion of the
mischief, until it is too late TO think of suppress
| ing it at all. In such cases, the more weak
| improbable, and inconsistent any story is, the
more powerful and general isits effect being help
ed on by design in some, by folly in others, and
kept up by contagion in all. The more extraor.
binary the design, the more dreadful the crime
| the less we examine into the proofs The charge
and the evidence of some things is the same
| However, in some the minds of people cool. and
they are astonished how they ever came TO be SC
Affected
| POWERFUL LANGUAGE. All the performan.
ces Of hHman art, at which we look with praise
and wonder, are instances Of the resistless force
of human perseverance, 1t is by this that the
quarry becomes a pyramid and that distant
to compare the effect of a single stroke Of tbs
pick-axe, or of one impression of a spade, with
the general design or last result, ho would be
overwhelmed by the sense of their dispropor