Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder General, apparently _was_ a Puritan. Indeed, it is his career, more than anything that ever happened in New England, which has led to the reiterated statement that Puritanism was especially favorable, by its temper and its tenets, to prosecution for witchcraft. For his activity falls in the time of the Commonwealth, and the Parliament granted a Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer, in 1645, to try some of the witches that he had detected, and Edmund Calamy was associated with the Commission. But, on the other hand, it must be noted that John Gaule, who opposed Hopkins and is usually credited with most influence in putting an end to his performances, was also a Puritan,--and a minister likewise, and a believer in witches as well. The Hopkins outbreak, as we shall see, must be laid to the disturbed condition of the country rather than to the prevalence of any particular system of theology.[5] Under Cromwell’s government, witch trials languished, not because the belief in witchcraft changed, but because there was order once more. So in Scotland, the conquest by Cromwell checked one of the fiercest prosecutions ever known. The Restoration was followed, both in England and in Scotland, by a marked recrudescence of prosecution.[6] But we must return to Matthew Hopkins. Let us see how his discoveries affected James Howell. In 1647 Howell writes to Endymion Porter: “We have likewise multitudes of _Witches_ among us, for in _Essex_ and _Suffolk_ there were above two hundred indicted within these two years, and above the one half of them executed: More, I may well say, than ever this Island bred since the Creation, I speak it with horror. God guard us from the Devil, for I think he was never so busy upon any part of the Earth that was enlightned with the beams of _Christianity_; nor do I wonder at it, for there’s never a Cross left to fright him away.”[7] In the following year, Howell writes to Sir Edward Spencer an elaborate defence of the current tenets in witchcraft and demonology.[8] One striking passage demands quotation:--“Since the beginning of these unnatural Wars, there may be a cloud of Witnesses produc’d for the proof of this black Tenet: For within the compass of two years, near upon three hundred Witches were arraign’d, and the major part executed in _Essex_ and _Suffolk_ only. _Scotland_ swarms with them now more than ever, and Persons of good Quality executed daily.” It is confidently submitted that nobody will accuse Howell of Puritanism. The letters from which our extracts are taken were written while he was a prisoner in the Fleet under suspicion of being a Royalist spy.[9] His mention of the disappearance of crosses throughout England will not be overlooked by the discriminating reader. It will be noted also that he seems to have perceived a connection--a real one, as we shall see later--[10] between the increase in witchcraft and the turmoil of the Civil War.