tonished and confounded at this so unlooked-for result, and, although he admitted that "the most critical and exquisite caution" was required in discriminating on this subject, inasmuch as the devil might assume the appearance of an innocent person; yet he stoutly contended for the reality of the crime, and the justice which had been dealt both to those who were really guilty, and also those who, by confessing falsely, had only got what they deserved. He strove hard to discover fresh cases, but received a mortifying check from the efforts of one Robert Calef, a citizen of Boston, "a coal sent from hell to blacken him, a malignant, calumnious, and reproachful man," whose stubborn common sense persisted in denying the existence of the crime, and who especially provoked Cotton Mather's ire by exposing the imposture of a girl visited by the Mathers as an "afflicted" one, and readily imposing upon the learned but credulous ministers. Some two years after, a circular was sent out inviting reports of apparitions and the like; but, as Cotton Mather laments, there was hardly, in ten years, half that number of responses to his application.
Thus this fearful scourge was removed, and heresy and blasphemy, together with witchcraft, ceased to appear as capital crimes on the statute book of Massachusetts. No more lives were sacrificed, and although the Mathers, Stoughton, and others,[1] do not appear to have changed their views as to the work in which they had been engaged, and though some eminent European opinions helped to confirm them in their cherished sentiments on this subject, yet a number of the prominent actors did express deep contrition: no more blood was shed ; no more horrible cruelty was practised on accusations of witchcraft. "Thus terminated," says Grahame, "a scene of fury and delusion that justly excited the astonishment of the civilized world, and exhibited a fearful picture of the weakness of human nature in the sudden transformation of a people renowned over all the earth for piety and virtue into the slaves or associates, the terrified dupes or helpless prey, of a band of ferocious lunatics and assassins."[2]
The frontier warfare, meanwhile, continued with unsparing severity on both sides. Indian cunning, treachery, and cruelty were all urged on and directed by French science and skill. "To these causes of suffering," says Dr. Dwight, in an interesting passage in his Travels, "were superadded the power of all such motives as the ingenuity of the French could invent, their wealth furnish, or
- ↑ "The inexorable indignation of the people of Salem village, drove Parris from the place; Noyes regained favor only by a full confession, asking forgiveness always, and consecrating the remainder of his life to deeds of mercy. Sewall, one of the judges, by the frankness and sincerity of his undisguised confession, recovered public esteem. Stoughton and Cotton Mather never repented. The former lived proud, unsatisfied, and unbeloved; the latter attempted to persuade others and himself, that he had not been specially active in the tragedy. But the public mind would not be deceived. His diary proves that he did not wholly escape the rising impeachment from the monitor within; and Cotton Mather, who had sought the foundation of faith in tales of wonders, himself 'had temptations to atheism, and to the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion.'"—Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. iii., p. 98.
- ↑ "History of the Colonies," vol. i., p. 281.
