The Salem Witchcraft: Burroughs and Andover
The aged Jacobs was condemned, in part, by the evidence of Margaret Jacobs, his granddaughter. [She retracted her confession, but] the magistrates refused their belief, and, confining her for trial, proceeded to hang her grandfather.
These five were condemned on the third and hanged on the nineteenth of August; pregnancy reprieved Elizabeth Procter. To hang a minister as a witch was a novelty; but Burroughs denied absolutely that there was, or could be, such a thing as witchcraft, in the current sense. This opinion wounded the self-love of the judges, for it made them the accusers and judicial murderers of the innocent. On the ladder Burroughs cleared his innocence by an earnest speech, repeating the Lord's prayer composedly and exactly, and with a fervency that astonished. Tears flowed to the eyes of many; it seemed as if the spectators would rise up to hinder the execution. Cotton Mather, on horseback among the crowd, addressed the people, cavilling at the ordination of Burroughs, as though he had been no true minister; insisting on his guilt, and hinting that the devil could sometimes assume the appearance of an angel of light; and the hanging proceeded.
Meantime, the confessions of the witches began to be directed against the Anabaptists. Mary Osgood was dipped by the devil. The court still had work to do. On the ninth, six women were condemned; and more convictions followed. Giles Cory, the octogenarian, seeing that all who denied guilt were convicted, refused to plead, and was condemned to be pressed to death. The horrid sentence, a barbarous usage of English law, never again followed in the colonies, was executed forthwith.
On the twenty-second of September eight persons were led to the gallows. Of these Samuel Wardwell had confessed, and was safe; but, from shame and penitence, he retracted his confession, and, speaking the truth boldly, he was hanged, not for witchcraft, but for denying witchcraft.. The chief judge was positive that all had been done rightly, and "was very impatient in hearing anything that looked another way." "There hang eight firebrands of hell," said Noyes, the minister of Salem, pointing to the bodies swinging on the gallows.
Already twenty persons had been put to death for witchcraft; fifty-five had been tortured or terrified into penitent confessions. With accusations, confessions increased; with confessions, new accusations. Even "the generation of the children of God" were in danger of "falling under that condemnation." The jails were full. One hundred and fifty prisoners awaited trial; two hundred more were accused or suspected. It was also observed that no one of the condemned confessing witchcraft had been hanged. No one that confessed, and retracted a confession, had escaped either hanging or imprisonment for trial. No one of the condemned who asserted innocence, even if one of the witnesses confessed perjury, or the foreman of the jury acknowledged the error of the verdict, escaped the gallows. Favoritism was shown in listening to accusations, which were turned aside from friends and partisans. If a man began a career as a witchhunter, and, becoming convinced of the imposture, declined the service, he was accused and hanged. Persons accused, who had escaped from the jurisdiction in Massachusetts, were not demanded, as would have been done in case of acknowledged crime; so that the magistrates acted as if witch-law did not extend beyond their jurisdiction. Witnesses convicted of perjury were cautioned, and permitted still to swear away the lives of others. It was certain that people had been tempted to become accusers by promise of favor. Yet the zeal of Stoughton was unabated, and the arbitrary court adjourned to the first Tuesday in November.
In the interval the colonial Assembly met. Remonstrances were presented against the doings of the witch tribunal. There is no record of the discussions, but a convocation of ministers was ordered, the special court was abrogated, and a legal tribunal established. The meeting of this court was delayed till January of the following year. This interval of three months gave the people time to think.
When the court met at Salem, six women of Andover, at once renouncing their confessions, treated the witchcraft but as something so called, the bewildered but as "seemingly afflicted." A memorial of like tenor came from the inhabitants of Andover.