The dangerously increasing class of informers who, like the 'delatores' of the early Roman Empire, made a lucrative profession by their baseness, and spared not even reluctant or recusant magistrates themselves, more than anything else, was the cause of the termination of the trials. If they would preserve their own lives, or at least their reputations, the authorities and judges found it was necessary at once to check the progress of the infection. About one hundred and fifty witches or wizards were still under arrest (two hundred more being about to be arrested), when Governor Phipps having been recalled by the Home Government, was induced by a feeling of interest or justice to release the prisoners, to the wonder and horror of the people. From this period a reaction commenced. Those who four years before originated the trials suddenly became objects of hatred or contempt. Even the clergy, who had taken a leading part in them, became unpopular. In spite of the strenuous attempts of Dr. Cotton Mather and his disciples to revive the agitation, the tide of public opinion or feeling had set the other way, and people began to acknowledge the insufficiency of the evidence and the possible innocence of the condemned. Public fasts and prayers were decreed throughout the colony. Judges and juries emulated one another in admitting a misgiving 'that we were sadly deluded and mistaken.' Dr. Mather was less fickle and less repentant. In one of his treatises on the subject, recounting some of the signs and proofs of the actual crime, he declares: 'Nor are these the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out among the inhabitants of New England. _Fleshy_ people may burlesque these things: but when hundreds of the most solemn people, in a country where they have as much mother-wit certainly as the rest of mankind, know them to be true, nothing but the froward spirit of Sadduceeism can question them. I have not yet (he confidently asserts) mentioned so much as one thing that will not be justified, if it be required, by the oaths of more considerate persons than any that can ridicule these odd phenomena.'[160] [160] _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic_, chap. xxxi. The faith of the Fellow of Harvard College, we may be inclined to suppose, was quickened in proportion to his doubts. To do him justice, he admitted that _some_ of the circumstances alleged might be exaggerated or even imaginary.