[166] Dr. Mather answers: "After the Storm was raised at Salem, I did myself offer to provide Meat, Drink, and Lodging, for no less than _Six_ of the Afflicted, that so an Experiment might be made, whether _Prayer_ with _Fasting_, upon the Removal of those Miserables, one from another, might not put a Period unto the Trouble then arising, without giving the Civil Authority the Trouble of Prosecuting the Methods of the Law on that Occasion. You'll say, How came it then to pass that many People took up another Notion of me? Truly, _Satan knows_. Perhaps 'twas because I thought it my Duty alwayes to speak of the Honourable Judges with as much Honour as I could; (a Crime which I am generally taxed for, and _for which I have been finely requited_!) This made People, who judge of Things _at a Distance_, to dream that I _approved_ of all that was done."--_Ibid_, 39-40. Certainly, if Words mean any thing, what he published fully justifies that Conclusion, notwithstanding his rare _Ambidexterity_. See Vol. I, _Ubique loci_. [167] Salem Street was in those Times, called _Green-Lane_; at the Corner made by that _Lane_ and Charter Street, the Governor actually resided. See _History and Antiquities of Reason_, 816. [168] Dr. Mather says in Reply: "Moreover, when the Ministers presented unto the Governour and Council, their Advice against making the _Spectral Exhibitions_ to be so much as a _Presumption of Witchcraft_, it was _my_ poor Hand which drew up that Advice, and my Heart was always in it."--_Some Few Remarks_, 38-9. But the Doctor does not explain how, in speaking of this _Address_ in the Life of Phips, he came to make use of the Words--_as I have been informed_--while in the _Some Few Remarks_ he owns that it was drawn by his _poor Hand_. See _Life of Phips in Magnalia_, Book II, 63. [169] See Volume I, Page 34. [170] Dr. Douglass goes further in this Matter. He says that "some of the Confessing Witches, by overacting their Parts in accusing some of Gov. Phips's, and the Rev. Mr. Mather's Relations; as also some of the Accused good Christians, and of good Estates, those arrested the Accusers in high Actions for Defamation; this put a stop to Accusations."--_Summary_, i, 450. [171] Referring to certain Answers in writing put into Mr. Calef's Hands, with an Injunction against his printing them. See _ante_, Vol. II, Page 86.