[63] The Supposition was correct. There was an Edition of the Work referred to, printed in Philadelphia in 1692, in a small Quarto of 16 Pages. Upon this Letter and the Work of Mr. Willard Dr. Mather remarks, evidently under great Excitement and Indignation as respects the Former: "I remember that when this miserable Man sent unto an eminent Minister in the Town, a _Libellous Letter_, reflecting both on a Judicious Discourse written by him, and on the Holy Proposals made by the Præsident and Fellows of _Harvard-College_, about _recording of Remarkable Providences_, and when he demanded and expected an Answer to his Follies, that Reverend Person only said _Go tell him That the Answer to him and his Letter is in the Twenty Sixth of the Proverbs, and the Fourth_." Mr. Willard's Silence was undoubtedly owing to a very different Cause than that given by Dr. Mather. It is fairly inferable that Mr. Willard was too good a Logician not to see that Mr. Calef's Argument did not admit of Refutation, and that his own Reputation would be best conserved by Silence. [64] Concerning this curious Paper, Quincy, in _Hist. Harvard College_, remarks: "As the Belief in the Agency of the Invisible World began to lessen, and some of those, who were the chief Actors in the Tragedy, to feel the Weight of public Indignation pressing upon them, they being Members of the Corporation, brought this Body into the Field for the Purpose of giving Countenance to that Belief, and of sustaining this decaying Faith." This was "prepared by both the Mathers, and signed by the whole Board, and circulated throughout New England."--Vol. I, _Page_ 62. The Signers will all be found duly noticed in Dr. Allen's _Biographical Dictionary_. [65] It will be remembered that the President (Mather) had published a Volume of _Remarkable Providences_, which, doubtless, met with a ready Sale, and induced a Desire for another. [66] To which of the Justices the Author refers is not certain, as Mr. Danforth and Mr. Saltonstall, two of them, were dead when he wrote. The Latter died in 1694, and the Former in 1699. [67] "That furious Marshal" was _George Herrick_, who, in October, 1692, stated, that "for nine Months his whole Time had been consumed as Marshal and Deputy Sheriff, in Cases of Witchcraft."--Felt, _Annals of Salem_, ii, 480. The Death of George Herrick is noticed in the Herrick Genealogy, as having occurred in 1695, but nothing is said of any Casualty. Mr. Savage supposes Him to be the same who came over in 1685, in the Ship with John Dunton, who, John says saved his Life at Sea.--_Life and Errors_, 126-7.