On the trial of Bridget Bishop, at Salem, for example; “John Cook testified, that about five or six years ago, one morning about sun-rise, he was in his chamber assaulted by the shape of this prisoner, which looked on him, grinned at him, and very much hurt him with a blow on the side of the head.”... “Richard Ceman testified, that eight years ago, as he lay awake in his bed, with a light burning in the room, he was annoyed with the apparition of this _Bishop_ and of two more that were strangers to him, who came and oppressed him so, that he could neither stir himself, nor wake any one else,” &c. Again, on the trial of Susannah Martin, “Bernard Peache testified, that being in bed, on the Lord’s day night, he heard a scrabbling at the window, whereat he then saw Susannah Martin come in and jump down upon the floor. She took hold of this deponent’s feet, and drawing his body up into one heap, she lay upon him near two hours; in all which time he could neither speak nor hear.” In the introduction to his history of the trials, which were conducted on such evidence, Mather gravely says; “’Tis, as I remember, the learned Scribonius, who reports, that one of his acquaintance, devoutly making his prayers on the behalf of a person molested by evil spirits, received from those evil spirits an horrible blow over the face: and I may myself expect not few or small buffetings from evil spirits, for the endeavours wherewith I am now going to encounter them. I am far from insensible, that at this extraordinary time of the _Devil’s coming down in great wrath_ upon us, there are too many tongues and hearts thereby _set on fire of hell_, that the various opinions about the witchcrafts which of later time have troubled us, are maintained by some with so much loud fury, as if they could never be sufficiently stated, unless written in the liquor wherewith witches use to write their covenants; and that he who becomes an author at such a time, had need be _fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear_.” Stoughton, the Lieutenant-Governor of New England, affixed his approbation to this book, vouching for the truth of the statements, and declaring that all good men would “greatly rejoice, that the spirit of the Lord had thus enabled him (Mather) to lift up a standard against the infernal enemy, that hath been _coming in like a flood upon us_.” Such was the force of this memorable fit of national insanity, during which torrents of innocent blood were shed, by the misguided judges and juries, under the impression that they were actually invaded by a legion of devils; the part of which was really performed by themselves.