been said of him, that "if he had then passed from the scene he would have been forgotten; or if he were remembered, it would have been as one who played a singular, but quite subordinate part"?1

His youth and want of prominence in the community is not improbably a reason for Mr. Brattle's not mentioning Cotton Mather, in particular, as opposed to many of the proceedings at Salem. He only mentions by name two of the "Rev. elders,2 Rev. Increase Mather, and Rev. Mr. Samuel Willard," among "several about the bay, men for understanding, judgment, and piety inferior to few if any in New England," who "do utterly condemn the said proceedings in the courts at Salem."

Why did not Cotton Mather disapprove of all Civil Suits against Witches?

The question probably arises in many minds, Why did he not more decidedly discountenance all civil tribunals for the trial of witches? In reply it may be asked, Why did not his father and all the clergy associated with him? Why did not Sir Matthew Hale, William Penn, Richard Baxter, and a host of others- indeed, almost every good man in England and America at that time? It was hazardous to reputation as a Christian or patriot, if not to life, for one to do so. "The Catholics were ready to burn him as a heretic, and the Protestants had a vehement longing to hang him for an atheist." 4

1 Boston Daily Advertiser, April 9, 1870.

2 He mentions in other stations only: "Hon. Simon Bradstreet, Esq. (our late governor); the Hon. Thomas Danforth, Esq. (our late deputy governor), and Maj. N. Saltonstall, one of the judges."

8 Mr. Drake says: "The solitary individual who dared to stem so popular a had nothing to expect on all hands but obloquy, derision, and

torrent.

....

contempt."

Mr. Brattle nowhere protests against civil tribunals taking cognizance of the conduct of those supposed to be possessed of devils, but only of the manner of apprehending and trying upon "spectral evidence," especially that of "afflicted children," and "the confessors," i.e. these who acknowledge "that they have signed to the devil's book, were baptized by the devil," etc. (See Hist. Coll., First Series, Vol. v. p. 66). Mr. Drake says: "Those who questioned

Besides, the matter had been already, without his privity or consent, brought before the courts. The community was in a state of intense excitement, which not even the wisest and most wary had escaped. No one doubted that a most terrible infliction from the devil had fallen upon the community. The most vigorous measures must be resorted to in opposition to this diabolical spectre, which was insinuating itself into a secret alliance with so many, especially of the elderly women and the children, as the accused and the accusers. That it was really a satanic influence no one doubted. How little adequate any mild remedy would be, in the view of the community, to check this terrible disease, the silence with which Cotton Mather's proposition to relieve the courts by scattering the afflicted in private families, was received, is a sufficient proof. Not at all improbably the very persons who afterward wrote most severely against the doings of the courts, and have been so much commended for it, would have most violently condemned, at this time, any one who would have resisted judicial action, as himself in complicity with or in favor of the devil.

I do not suppose, however, that Cotton Mather was so much deterred by the danger to his person or fear of injury to his reputation as a man, as from shrinking from setting himself in opposition to civil authority, both at home and abroad, and an unwillingness to be, or seem to be, found as an opposer of good order, morality, and religion. His conviction of the power of the devil as the agent of all misdoing was so strong, and his hatred of him so real and ingrained, that he shrank even from an appearance of complicity with him. Had he been less conscientious and less faithful in defending what he supposed to be right, he would have avoided much of the censure that has been so persistently and abundantly heaped upon him.

He himself gives a clew to the ground of the insinuations against him, some time after the trials had ended at Salem.

the legality of their proceeding (punishers of witches), were at least infidels in the most obnoxious sense, and they were generally treated as such, and were to be shunned by society." Witchcraft Delusion, Introduction.

After stoutly maintaining his advocacy of great caution and charity" in dealing with those accused, which his own writings yet extant fully authorize him to do, he says: "How came it to pass that so many people took up a different notion of me? Surely, Satan knows. Perhaps it was because I thought it my duty always to speak of the honorable judges with as much honor as I could a crime which I am generally taxed for, and for which I have been requited. This made people who judge at a distance to dream that I approved all that was done. Perhaps, also, my disposition to avoid extremes..... had caused me to be generally obnoxious to the violent of all parties. Or perhaps my great adversary always had people full of Robert Calef's malignity to serve him with calumnies and reproaches."

The Best Authorities in reference to the Salem Trials do not criminate Cotton Mather.

Governor Hutchinson, as is well known, wrote a "History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," several times before referred to, which is acknowledged by all to be in every respect reliable. Upham says, that "he enjoyed an advantage over every other writer before, since, or hereafter, so far as relates to the witchcraft proceedings of 1692." All the "records and documents relating to it, which have since been lost, he had at hand." And "his treatment of that particular topic is more satisfactory than can elsewhere be found." Now, if Cotton Mather's influence was so great as has been pretended in encouraging and abetting the proceedings in the Salem trials, how happens it that Governor Hutchinson never mentions him in connection with them? How could he have left out, in his account of them, the principal motive power?

Mr. Thomas Brattle, too, whose decided opposition to the method of the courts was fully expressed, fails to criminate Cotton Mather in this particular, or even mention his name. Could this have been, if he had exerted a tithe of the 1 Upham, Vol. i. p.

415.

influence imputed to him in after times? It seems not improbable, however, that Mr. Brattle, without mentioning his name, speaks with high commendation of Cotton Mather in connection with the Salem trials. After referring to the influence of the clergy and some other leading men as opposed to the action of the judges, and naming several, he says that, "excepting Mr. Hale, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Parris, the reverend elders almost throughout the whole country are very much dissatisfied." Here it is plain that Mr. Brattle does not include Cotton Mather among those who are satisfied with the action of the judges.

But he goes on farther to say: "In particular, I cannot but think very honorably of the endeavors of a Rev. person in Boston, whose good affection to his country in general, and spiritual relation to three of the judges in particular, has made him very solicitous and industrious in this matter. And I am fully persuaded that had his notions and proposals been hearkened to and followed when these troubles were in their birth, in an ordinary way, they would never have grown to that height which now they have. He has as yet met with but little but unkindness, abuse, and reproach from many men; but I trust that in after times his wisdom and service will find a more universal acknowledgment; and if not, his reward is of the Lord." 2

This has been claimed as designating Mr. Samuel Willard, and there is no absolute certainty that it does not. But the internal evidence (and there appears to be no other extant) is against referring it to him. He has just been mentioned by name; it is not natural to refer to him anonymously in the same connection. On the other hand, Mr. C. Mather is not elsewhere alluded to by Mr. Brattle in the immediate connection, and not at all except as the spiritual adviser of those condemned. Besides, the language so well describes the character and relation of the young minister of the Old North Church that it seems almost strange that it has ever 2 Ibid., p. 76, 77. Ibid., p. 68.

1 Mass. Hist. Coll. (1st Series), Vol. v. pp. 74, 75.

8 Ibid., 75.

p.

4

been claimed for any one else. Three of the judges might be said to be "in spiritual relations" to him- Mr. Richards, who was a member of his church, Mr. Stoughton who was closely united in friendship with him, and Wait Winthrop, "whom," he says, "he reckoned among the best of his friends," and whom at his death he honored with a funeral sermon and an epitaph. And the latter part of the paragraph quoted could scarcely apply more naturally than to him who had offended both parties; the one, because he had spoken and written upon the reality of satanic possession with so much zeal; and the other, because he did not give the trials that support which was expected of him.1

Calef's" More Wonders of the Invisible World." 2

This book, of which so much has been made in these latter days by those who have written against the Mathers, seems to have originated as much, at least, from a personal ill-feeling toward them and others of the clergy, and especially toward Cotton Mather, as from any strong feeling of opposition to the witchcraft proceedings at Salem. Its spirit is sufficiently characterized by such passages as this: "It is rather a wonder that no more blood was shed; for if that advice of his pastors [the Mathers] could have still prevailed with him, witchcraft had not been so shammed off as it was."5

4

It is full, too, of uneducated prejudices 6 and insinuations,

1 See more extended discussion of this point in North American Review, April 1869, p. 387 sq.

2 This book was first published in London in 1700, eight years after the executions at Salem. The Preface or Introduction is dated 1697, three years earlier. It was reprinted the same year (1700), at Salem. Much of it, however, had been circulated in manuscript as early as the beginning of 1693, when Mr. Mather's Letter was called forth.

See Upham's Salem Witchcraft, Vol. ii. p. 471, 472.

Governor Phipps.

See More Wonders, p. 153, quoted also by Poole.

• Calef was a Boston merchant of apparently little culture, whose name would have, in all probability, been long since forgotten, but for the notoriety occasioned by the opposition to his book in his own time, and the use made of it within the last half-century by those who have written against Cotton Mather. He is nowhere mentioned by Brattle in his Letter on Witchcraft as exerting an influence against it.