Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/180

156 poured out the blood of the first political martyr on the soil of New York. Massachusetts, worn down by her previous military efforts, was exposed to frequent incursions. Sir William Phipps, in 1692, returned from England, where he had gone to solicit an expedition against Quebec, with the new charter of Massachusetts and his commission as governor. In some respects the charter was gratifying, and in others not at all so. The extent of the province was very considerably increased; the governor was to be appointed by the crown with a veto power on the acts of the General Court; to the king was reserved the power of annulling any law within three years after its passage; and toleration was secured to all except papists, thus giving a death-blow to the theocratic absolutism which had so long prevailed. Plymouth was joined to Massachusetts, and New Hampshire separated from it, in both cases contrary to their wishes. Phipps found on his arrival not only many and severe trials awaiting him, in consequence of the continued inroads from Canada and the heavy expenses of the war, but alas, other and more terrible trials, the very account of which appears to be almost incredible.

A belief in witchcraft was at this date very prevalent in England, and it was adjudged a capital offence, particularly by a statute of James I, who had himself written a treatise on the art of detecting witches. During the Long Parliament, a vast number of persons fell victims to the popular delusion. Shortly after the Restoration, Sir Matthew Hale, revered no less in the colonies than the mother country for piety and wisdom, had adjudged to death two poor old women in Suffolk, for this supposed crime. Witch stories and printed narratives were widely current. It need not excite surprise, then, that a people like that of New England, whose temperament was naturally serious, to whom every incident of life was looked upon as a special providence, and who were filled with a large measure of faith in spiritual influences and manifestations, should have been ready to embrace a delusion of this kind.

Notwithstanding the general impression in favor of the reality of witchcraft, it had been many years now since any execution had taken place for this offence. In 1688, however, while Andros was still governor, four children of pious parents in Boston suddenly began to display every appearance of having been bewitched. The eldest, a girl of thirteen, had charged an Irish servant girl with stealing, a charge which was bitterly resented by the girl's mother. Soon after, to revenge herself, as it would seem, upon the old Irishwoman, the girl and three younger children took occasion to bark like dogs, or purr like cats, to scream and shout, or appear to be deaf, blind, or dumb. Cotton Mather, a man of multitudinous learning, but very vain, credulous, and fanatically inclined, in company with other ministers, kept a day of fasting and prayer, and succeeded in relieving the youngest child. The others persevered and accused the old woman of bewitching them. She