The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress, and Termination, (Vol. 1 of 3)Mather, Cotton
History
The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress, and Termination, (Vol. 1 of 3)
Mather, Cotton
Witchcraft -- New England
like our Judges, Sewall and Stoughton, he was a Believer in Witchcraft,
because there was Evidence of its Existence in the Bible! He was a
timid Man, and this Timidity would not allow him so much as "to sum up
the Evidence" in the Trial above given, and thus was the Case submitted
to the Jury, who speedily gave in their Verdict of Guilty. There can
be no Doubt but if Sir Matthew Hale had lived until the End of the
New England Trials, he would, like Judge Sewall, have repented of his
Course.
[148] Spelt Keyling in the _Life of Hale_, whom he (Hale) succeeded as
Lord Chief Justice, without taking his good Sense with him.
[149] There is different, and somewhat more of a common Sense Account
of this Trial in Hutchinson's _Essay_, Pp. 139-157, Chap. viii.
I.
THE TRYAL OF G. B.
_At a Court of_ OYER _and_ TERMINER,
HELD IN SALEM, 1692.
GLAD should I have been, if I had never known the Name of this Man; or
never had this occasion to mention so much as the first Letters of his
Name. But the Government requiring some Account of his [61] Trial to be
inserted in this Book, it becomes me with all Obedience to submit unto
the Order.
I. This _G. B._[150] was Indicted for Witch-craft, and in the
prosecution of the Charge against him, he was Accused by five or six
of the Bewitched, as the Author of their Miseries; he was Accused by
Eight of the Confessing Witches, as being an head Actor at some of
their Hellish Randezvouzes, and one who had the promise of being a King
in Satan's Kingdom, now going to be Erected: He was accused by Nine
Persons for extraordinary Lifting, and such feats of Strength, as could
not be done without a Diabolical Assistance. And for other such things
he was Accused, until about thirty Testimonies were brought in against
him; nor were these judg'd the half of what might have been considered
for his Conviction: However they were enough to fix the Character of a
Witch upon him according to the Rules of Reasoning, by the Judicious
_Gaule_, in that Case directed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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