It went hard with the magistrates and Cotton Mather that a poor old Catholic, a “scandalous Irishwoman,” withstood the doctrine of the self-reputed “saints”; and even now Goody Glover could have saved her life had she “relented.” The magistrates went to her on her last night alive, to beat down her opposition by questions of her soul. They failed, and Cotton Mather took their place. He was above the law in the cheerless Colony. When, in 1692, the jury brought in poor Rebecca Nourse innocent of witchcraft, he had them sent to reconsider the evidence: at his beck they found her guilty. Then the governor, Sir William Phipps, pardoned her. In defiance of the pardon, Cotton Mather had her hanged, and saw her die on Witches’ Hill at Salem; and, “sitting on his black horse, he rebuked those who did bewail her; for she was an excellent woman.” In view of this exhibition of his arbitrary power, is it too much to say that, had Goody Glover “relented,” in his vainglory over the conquest of a broken-down old woman, Cotton Mather would have had her set free? But the old Irishwoman conquered Cotton Mather. “She died a Catholic”; and, imitating her Divine Master, she died forgiving her enemies,—all those from whom she had suffered grievous wrong. CAPT. DANIEL NEILL, AN ARTILLERY OFFICER OF THE REVOLUTION. BY GEN. J. MADISON DRAKE[5]. It has never been generally known that the first cannon shot at the enemy, after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by Congress, at Philadelphia, on the evening of July 4, 1776, was fired in Elizabeth, N. J., then known as Elizabethtown, and as the present time seems opportune for the revivication of local incidents in the war for independence, I will narrate an exciting episode to awaken additional interest. Up to February, 1776, the state of New Jersey, or province as it then was, had no artillery organization, and the importance of that arm of the service being acutely felt, the Provincial Congress, in session at Burlington, on the 13th of that month, adopted the following resolution: _Resolved_, That two complete artillery companies be raised in this colony. The ordinance provided that the term of enlistment should be for one year, and that one company should be stationed in the eastern part of the province, the other in the western. Each company was to consist of a captain, one captain-lieutenant, two second lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, and one hundred and fifty matrosses. (The last term was at that time used to denote gunners’ mates, or soldiers in a train of artillery, who assisted in loading, firing and sponging the guns.) The day following the passage of the ordinance the first or eastern company was organized in Newark by the election of the following officers: Captain—Frederick Frelinghuysen. Captain-Lieutenant—Daniel Neill. Second Lieutenants—Thomas Clark and James Heard.