Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/183

 minister, but had for some reason become unpopular both with his flock and his fellow-ministers, whose convictions and self-conceit he had wounded, by declaring his entire disbelief in the possibility of the crime for which they were putting so many to death. Among other things, he was accused of displaying preternatural strength—of course through the assistance of the devil. He staggered, however, the more reasonable portion of the crowd present at his execution, by solemnly and fervently repeating the Lord's Prayer, which it was supposed no wizard could do. The tears of the spectators began to flow, and they gave signs of rising to stop the execution, but the dangerous sympathy was arrested by Cotton Mather, who, riding to and fro, carefully reminded them that Burroughs was not an "ordained" minister, and that to deceive the unwary, Satan often put on the appearance of an angel of light.

At the next two sessions of the court, in September, fourteen women and one man were sentenced to death. One old man of eighty refused to plead, and by that horrible decree of the common law, was pressed to death. Although it was evident that confession was the only safety in most of cases, some few had courage to retract their confessions: some eight of these were sent to execution. Twenty persons had already been put to death; eight more were under sentence; the jails were full of prisoners; and new accusations were made every day. In such a state of things the court adjourned to the first Monday in November.

A reaction, however, ere long took place. The accusations began to assume too serious and sweeping a shape to permit them much longer to be entertained, since even the ministers and those in highest place in state and church were marked out as guilty of this crime. Many who had confessed had courage to recant. Having been, as they said, suddenly seized as prisoners. and "by reason of the sudden surprisal amazed and affrighted out of their reason, and exhorted by their nearest relatives to confess, as the only means of saving their lives, they were thus persuaded into compliance. And in- deed the confession was no other than what was suggested to them by some gentlemen, who, telling them that they were witches and that they knew they were so, made them think it was so; and their understandings, their reason, their faculties, almost gone, they were incapable of judging of their condition; and being moreover prevented by hard measures from making their defence, they confessed to any thing and every thing required of them." The scales began to fall from the eyes of a deluded people. Remonstrances now poured in against condemning persons of exemplary lives upon the idle accusations of children; the evident partiality of the judges, their cruel methods of compelling confessions, their total disregard of recantations however sincere, at length appeared in their true light. On the opening of the next court, in January, 1693, the grand jury dismissed the greater part of the cases, and those who had already been sentenced to death were reprieved, and ultimately released. Mather was