representatives were chosen by the people, but the governor had a negative on the choice of the counsellors, and could convoke, adjourn, or dissolve the legislature at pleasure. He also nominated all military officers, and, with the consent of his council, all the Judges and law officers. He had, moreover, a veto on the acts of the legislature, and every law was to be sent to England for the royal approbation. Such was the new government of Massachusetts, which excited great discontent, and led the way, by constant struggles between the colonial and the regal power, to the war of independence. The British ministers were aware how unwelcome these innovations were to the people of Massachusetts, and in order to soften the measure at the outset, procured the appointment of a native American, Sir William Phipps, for governor of the province. As he was held in high esteem by the inhabitants, his appointment had some effect in softening their ill humor.

Yet his administration, on the whole, was unprosperous; for although he might give his sanction, as governor, to popular laws, it was not in his power to guard them from being rescinded by the crown; and this fate soon befel a law that was passed by the provincial assembly, declaring the colonists exempt from all taxes but such as should be imposed by their own representatives, and asserting their right to share all the privileges of Magna Charta. He found the province involved in a distressing war with the French and Indians, and in the still more formidable calamity of that strange delusion which has been termed the New England witchcraft, and which will be described at length in the next chapter. When the Indians were informed of the elevation of Sir William Phipps to the office of governor of Massachusetts, they were struck with amazement at the fortunes of the man, whose humble origin they perfectly well knew, and with whom they had familiarly associated but a few years before in the obscurity of his primitive condition. Impressed with a high opinion of his courage and resolution, and a superstitious dread of that fortune that seemed destined to surmount every obstacle, and prevail over every disadvantage, they would willingly have made peace with him and his countrymen, but were induced to continue the war by the artifices and intrigues of the French. A few months after his arrival, the governor, at the head of a small army, marched to Pemaquid, on the Penobscot river, and there caused to be erected a fort of considerable strength, calculated by its situation to form a powerful protection to the province, to overawe the neighboring tribes of Indians, and interrupt their mutual communication. The beneficial effect of this operation was experienced in the following year. when the Indians sent

ambassadors to the fort at Pemaquid, and there at length concluded, with English commissioners, a treaty of peace, by which they renounced forever the interests of the French, and pledged themselves to perpetual amity with the inhabitants of New England. The colonists, who had suffered severely from the recent depredations of these savages, and were still laboring under the burdens entailed on them by former wars, were not slow to embrace the first overtures of peace and yet they murmured, with great discontent and ill humor, at the measure to which they were principally indebted for the deliverance they had so ardently desired. The expense of building the fort, and maintaining its garrison and stores, occasioned an addition to the existing taxes, which provoked their impatience. The party who had opposed submission to the new charter, eagerly promoted every complaint against the operation of a system which they regarded with rooted aversion; and labored so successfully on this occasion to vilify the person and government of Sir William Phipps, in the eyes of his countrymen, that his popularity sustained a shock from which it never afterwards entirely recovered. The people were easily induced to regard the increase of taxation as the effect of the recent abridgement of their political privileges, and to believe that if they had retained their ancient control over the officers of government, the administration of their affairs might have been more economically conducted. But another cause, which we have already mentioned, and must now more attentively consider, rendered the minds of the colonists, at this time, unusually susceptible of gloomy impressions, and of suspicions equally irritating and unreasonable.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Witchcraft in Europe.-First symptoms of this belief in America.-The Boston witchcraft.-The Salem witchcraft.-Propagation of the delusion.-Influence and credulity of the clergy.-Particulars of the various trials and executions.Illegality of the judicial proceedings.-Absurdities uttered by the witnesses.Cotton Mather.-Increase of the delusion.-Consternation of the people.-Revolution in the public mind, and cessation of the trials.-Inexplicable character of these occurrences.

WITCHCRAFT had been a matter of serious belief in Europe from time immemorial. In 1484, Pope Innocent issued a bull, directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all who were guilty of this crime. In 1515, more than five hundred persons were burned at Geneva, for witchcraft, in three months. Above a thousand were put to death in the diocese of Como within a single year, and above one hundred thousand, in Germany alone, were executed for this crime, during the persecutions consequent upon the papal bull. In the reign of Elizabeth and James I., statutes against this offence were enacted in England, and within the space of one hundred and fifty years, it is esti mated that thirty thousand individuals suffered death on this account. As late as 1647, more than a hundred executions in England attested the general belief in this crime still existing in that enlightened country. Witches were hanged in England as late as 1716, and in Scotland till 1722.

The early settlers of New England could hardly be expected to be free from this portion of the current superstition of the age: and, in accordance with the opinion of their countrymen in the Old World, they regarded it with great abhorrence and indignation. In America, however, as in England, there were not wanting men of sense and discernment whose understanding was above this vulgar error. In the year 1693, as we shall see presently, Robert Calef, a merchant of Boston, was bold enough to contradict the reigning opinions on this delicate subject. His courageous and manly reasoning, and the pungent sarcasm of his language, provoked the hottest ire of the New England clergy, with Cotton Mather at their head. It is worthy of remark, that. more than half a century after this, the learned and acute jurist, Blackstone, asserted, in the hall of a British university, that the existence of witchcraft and sorcery was a truth to which every nation in the world had borne testimony!-an opinion which he has given to the world in his well known commentaries on the laws of England.

Holding these long-established notions, the colonists of New England naturally looked upon the savages as worshippers of evil spirits, and their priests or powows as necromancers. The first mention of witchcraft occurs about 1645, but no executions took place till 1650, when three persons suffered death at Boston, all protesting their innocence. About the same time, or a little later, there were trials for this offence in New York, but no persons were executed. A period of nearly thirty years elapsed from the first executions in Boston, without the occurrence of any new case. But in 1688, witchcraft again attracted notice, in consequence of the publication of a book containing a circumstantial account of the previous cases and arguments, tending to show the reality of the crime. The effect of this work was immediately apparent. Four of the children of John Goodwin, a serious and respectable man in the north part of Boston, were suspected of being bewitched. These children were intelligent, pious and moral; the eldest was not above fourteen. She had accused a washer-woman with purloining some of the family linen. The mother of this woman was an Irish female, of bad character, and abused the girl in harsh terms; soon after which, the girl fell into fits, which were thought to be produced by diabolical means. One of her sisters and two brothers followed her example, and according to the story, were tormented in the same part of their body at the same time, although they were kept separate. All their complaints were in the day-time, and they slept comfortably all night; but this was only an additional marvel in the popular

estimation. They were struck speechless at the sight of the Assembly's Catechism, Cotton's Milk for Babes, and sundry other books of the same stamp; but could read profane, popish, quaker and episcopalian books, without any trouble. At times they lost their sight, hearing and speech. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, and then stuck out upon their chins. Their joints would be dislocated, and they would utter piteous outcries of burnings, incisions, beating, &c., and show their wounds.

These occurrences created a general alarm in Boston, and the ministers kept a day of fasting and prayer, at the house of the sufferers; after which the youngest child made no more complaints. The others continued to be afflicted, and the magistrates judged it time to interpose. The Irish woman underwent an examination, but would neither confess nor deny, and appeared to be out of her senses. The physicians decided that she was of sound mind, and she was hanged, declaring that the children should not be relieved from their complaints. The eldest was taken into Cotton Mather's family, where, after some time, she fell again into her convulsions, but the matter went no further in this instance. All the children subsequently returned to their ordinary behavior.

The great tragedy in this deplorable delusion was acted at Salem. It began in 1692, in the house of Samuel Parris, a minister of that place. His daughter, niece, and two other girls, all of tender age, began to make similar complaints to those mentioned in the case of Goodwin's children. The physicians, not knowing how to explain the facts, instead of suspecting foolish tricks in the children, pronounced them bewitched. An Indian woman in the family tried some experiments, which she pretended to have learned among her own people, to find out the witch. The children heard of this, and we cannot be surprised that their next proceeding was to cry out against the poor Indian, and pretend that she was pinching, pricking and tormenting them. Straightway they fell into fits; but Tituba, the Indian, resolutely denied that she was a witch, although she confessed that she knew how to discover one. Private fasts were kept at the minister's house, and as the alarm increased, these became public, and at length a general fast was proclaimed throughout the colony.

At this distance of time the increase of this wretched delusion may be easily explained; but at the period of which we are speaking, natural means and ordinary motives were not likely to be assigned as the causes of events which could be ascribed to superhuman agency. The great notice which people took of the children, with the sympathies of the persons who visited them,