No More Learning

From the time of his release from prison in '94 to that of his
return to the United States, on the invitation of Jefferson, in 1802,
little is known of Paine's life. He was very poor, his associates seem
to have been unworthy of him, he was growing old, his health was
wretched, and the habit of brooding over what he thought the in-
justice and ingratitude of the American people led him at times to
drink more than was good for him. He still wrote,- papers on finance,
'The Rights of Man,' 'Agrarian Justice,' the last part of the 'Age of
Reason' (the first book of which he had completed but not revised at
the time of his arrest by the Committee of Public Safety: a work
which gave him the reputation of a foe to Christianity), but the
old fire was burned out. His last seven years in America were most
unhappy. Old friends fell away. The acerbity of his temper and
the sensitiveness of his vanity kept new ones aloof. The bitterness
of politics colored judgment, and he was accused of offenses he had
never committed and of conduct impossible to him. An old man at
seventy-two, he died broken with many griefs, to be remembered by
a later age as "the great Commoner of Mankind. "
-


## p. 10979 (#191) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10979
FROM THE CRISIS »
Reprinted from Moncure D. Conway's Edition of The Writings of Thomas
Paine. Copyright 1894, by G. P. Putnam's Sons
T"
HESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is
not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that
the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What
we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only
that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a
proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if
so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.
Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that
she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES
WHATSOEVER"; and if being bound in that manner is not slavery,
then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the
expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only
to God.
Whether the independence of the continent was declared too
soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argu-
ment; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months
earlier it would have been much better. We did not make a
proper use of last winter; neither could we, while we were in a
dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our
own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal
is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past
is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jer-
seys a year ago would have quickly repulsed, and which time.
and a little resolution will soon recover.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living; but
my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty
will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them
unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly
sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method.
which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the
infidel in me as to suppose that he has relinquished the govern-
ment of the world, and given us up to the care of devils: and
as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the King of Britain


## p. 10980 (#192) ##########################################

10980
THOMAS PAINE
can look up to heaven for help against us; a common murderer,
a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretense
as he.
'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run
through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to
them: Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French
fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] cen-
tury the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of
France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this
brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected
and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven might
inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save
her fair fellow-sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet pan-
ics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good
as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows
through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But
their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sin-
cerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light which
might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they
have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary appa-
rition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the
hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the
world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that
shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe
arrived upon the Delaware.
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our
retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that
both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued,
frequently without rest, covering, or provision,- the inevitable
consequences of a long retreat,- bore it with a manly and mar-
tial spirit. All their wishes centred in one; which was, that
the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy
back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared
to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same re-
mark may be made on General Washington, for the character
fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which can-
not be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a
cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kinds of public
blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed.
him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can
even flourish upon care.
.


## p. 10981 (#193) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10981
Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her
situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has
nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish
himself between temper and principle; and I am as confident as
I am that God governs the world, that America will never be
happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without
ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent
must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty
may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
America did not, nor does not, want force; but she wanted a
proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of
a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting
off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise
an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defense of a
well-meaning militia. A summer's experience has now taught
us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we
were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy; and thank
God! they are again assembling. I always considered militia as
the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will
not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an
attempt on this city: should he fail on this side the Delaware, he
is ruined; if he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all
on his side against part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the con-
sequence will be that armies from both ends of the continent
will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle States:
for he cannot go everywhere; it is impossible. I consider Howe
as the greatest enemy the Tories have: he is bringing a war
into their country, which, had it not been for him and partly for
themselves, they had been clear of. Should he now be expelled,
I wish with all the devotion of a Christian that the names of
Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the
Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he
come, I as sincerely wish that our next year's arms may expel
them from the continent, and the Congress appropriate their pos-
sessions to the relief of those who have suffered in well-doing.
A single successful battle next year will settle the whole. Amer-
ica could carry on a two-years' war by the confiscation of the
property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their
expulsion. Say not that this is revenge; call it rather the self-
resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view
but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly


## p. 10982 (#194) ##########################################

10982
THOMAS PAINE
doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hard-
ness: eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow
draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the
heart that is steeled with prejudice.
Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a
friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to
stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all; not
on this State or that State, but on every State: up and help us;
lay your shoulders to the wheel: better have too much force than
too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to
the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but
hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country,
alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to re-
pulse it.
Say not that thousands are gone,-turn out your tens
of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence,
but "show your faith by your works," that God may bless you.
It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the
evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near,
the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will
suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead:
the blood of his children will curse his cowardice who shrinks
back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and
made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble,
that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflec-
tion. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose
heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will
pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to
myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treas-
ures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to
support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief
breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills
or threatens to kill me or those that are in it, and to "bind me
in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?
What signifies it to me whether he who does it is a king or a
common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it
be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we
reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither
can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one
case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel, and
welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the mis-
ery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing
_____


## p. 10983 (#195) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10983
allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid,
stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid
idea in receiving mercy from a being who at the last day shall be
shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing
with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and
this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent
of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with
the hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It
is the madness of folly to expect mercy from those who have
refused to do justice: and even mercy, where conquest is the
object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as mur-
derous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally
against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats and partly
by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their
arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same
plan to Gage, and this is what the Tories call making their
peace: "a peace which passeth all understanding," indeed! a peace
which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than
any we have yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do rea-
son upon these things! Were the back counties to give up their
arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are well
armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for.
Were the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be
exposed to the resentment of the back counties, who would then
have it in their power to chastise their defection at pleasure.
And were any one State to give up its arms, that State must be
garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to pre-
serve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal
link in the chain of mutual love; and woe be to that State that
breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbar-
ous destruction; and men must be either rogues or fools that will
not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination: I bring
reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A B C, hold
up truth to your eyes.
I thank God that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I
know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While
our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle: and it
is no credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains,
and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenseless Jer-
seys; but it is great credit to us, that with a handful of men we


## p. 10984 (#196) ##########################################

10984
THOMAS PAINE
sustained an orderly retreat for near a hundred miles, brought
off our ammunition, all our field-pieces, the greatest part of our
stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our
retreat was precipitate; for we were near three weeks in per-
forming it, that the country might have time to come in. Twice
we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till
dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp; and had
not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false
alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged.
Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army
at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be
able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well
armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may
know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of
a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of
a variety of evils: a ravaged country-a depopulated city-habi-
tations without safety, and slavery without hope-our homes
turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians—and a
future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of.
Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains
one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it
unlamented.
COMMON SENSE.
December 23d, 1776.
THE MAGAZINE IN AMERICA
From the paper written on taking charge of the newly founded Pennsylvania
Magazine, 1775. Reprinted from Moncure D. Conway's edition of The
Writings of Thomas Paine. ' Copyright 1894, by G. P. Putnam's Sons.
I'
NA country whose reigning character is the love of science,
it is somewhat strange that the channels of communication
should continue so narrow and limited. The weekly papers
are at present the only vehicles of public information. Conven-
ience and necessity prove that the opportunities of acquiring and
communicating knowledge ought always to enlarge with the
circle of population. America has now outgrown the state of
infancy: her strength and commerce make large advances to
manhood; and science in all its branches has not only blossomed,
but even ripened on the soil. The cottages as it were of yester-
day have grown to villages, and the villages to cities; and while


## p. 10985 (#197) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10985
proud antiquity, like a skeleton in rags, parades the streets of
other nations, their genius, as if sickened and disgusted with the
phantom, comes hither for recovery.
The present enlarged and improved state of things gives every
encouragement which the editor of a new magazine can reason-
ably hope for. The failure of former ones cannot be drawn as
a parallel now. Change of times adds propriety to new meas-
ures. In the early days of colonization, when a whisper was
almost sufficient to have negotiated all our internal concerns, the
publishing even of a newspaper would have been premature.
Those times are past; and population has established both their
use and their credit. But their plan, being almost wholly de-
voted to news and commerce, affords but a scanty residence to
the Muses. Their path lies wide of the field of science, and has
left a rich and unexplored region for new adventures.
It has always been the opinion of the learned and curious,
that a magazine, when properly conducted, is the nursery of
genius; and by constantly accumulating new matter, becomes a
kind of market for wit and utility. The opportunities which it
affords to men of abilities to communicate their studies, kindle
up a spirit of invention and emulation. An unexercised genius
soon contracts a kind of mossiness, which not only checks its
growth, but abates its natural vigor. Like an untenanted house
it falls into decay, and frequently ruins the possessor.
There is nothing which obtains so general an influence over
the manners and morals of a people as the press; from that, as
from a fountain, the streams of vice or virtue are poured forth
over a country: and of all publications, none are more calculated
to improve or infect than a periodical one. All others have
their rise and their exit; but this renews the pursuit. If it has
an evil tendency, it debauches by the power of repetition; if
a good one, it obtains favor by the gracefulness of soliciting it.
Like a lover, it woos its mistress with unabated ardor, nor gives
up the pursuit without a conquest.
The two capital supports of a magazine are Utility and En-
tertainment: the first is a boundless path, the other an endless
spring. To suppose that arts and sciences are exhausted sub-
jects, is doing them a kind of dishonor. The divine mechanism
of creation reproves such folly, and shows us by comparison the
imperfection of our most refined inventions. I cannot believe
that this species of vanity is peculiar to the present age only. I


## p. 10986 (#198) ##########################################

10986
THOMAS PAINE
have no doubt but that it existed before the Flood, and even
in the wildest ages of antiquity. 'Tis folly we have inherited,
not created; and the discoveries which every day produces have
greatly contributed to dispossess us of it. Improvement and
the world will expire together; and till that period arrives, we
may plunder the mine, but can never exhaust it! That "We have
found out everything," has been the motto of every age. Let
our ideas travel a little into antiquity, and we shall find larger
portions of it than now; and so unwilling were our ancestors to
descend from this mountain of perfection, that when any new
discovery exceeded the common standard the discoverer was be-
lieved to be in alliance with the Devil. It was not the ignorance
of the age only, but the vanity of it, which rendered it dangerous
to be ingenious. The man who first planned and erected a ten-
able hut, with a hole for the smoke to pass and the light to
enter, was perhaps called an able architect; but he who first
improved it with a chimney could be no less than a prodigy: yet
had the same man been so unfortunate as to have embellished it
with glass windows, he might probably have been burnt for a
magician. Our fancies would be highly diverted could we look
back and behold a circle of original Indians haranguing on the
sublime perfection of the age; yet 'tis not impossible but future
times may exceed us almost as much as we have exceeded them.
I would wish to extirpate the least remains of this impolitic
vanity. It has a direct tendency to unbrace the nerves of inven-
tion, and is peculiarly hurtful to young colonies. A magazine
can never want matter in America, if the inhabitants will do
justice to their own abilities. Agriculture and manufactures owe
much of their improvement in England to hints first thrown out
in some of their magazines. Gentlemen whose abilities enabled
them to make experiments, frequently chose that method of com-
munication on account of its convenience. And why should not
the same spirit operate in America? I have no doubt of seeing,
in a little time, an American magazine full of more useful mat-
ter than I ever saw an English one: because we are not exceeded
in abilities, have a more extensive field for inquiry; and whatever
may be our political state, our happiness will always depend upon
ourselves.
Something useful will always arise from exercising the in-
vention, though perhaps, like the witch of Endor, we shall raise
up a being we did not expect. We owe many of our noblest


## p. 10987 (#199) ##########################################

THOMAS PAINE
10987
discoveries more to accident than wisdom. In quest of a pebble
we have found a diamond, and returned enriched with the treas-
ure.
Such happy accidents give additional encouragement to the
making experiments; and the convenience which a magazine
affords of collecting and conveying them to the public, enhances
their utility. Where this opportunity is wanting, many little in-
ventions, the forerunners of improvement, are suffered to expire
on the spot that produced them; and as an elegant writer beauti-
fully expresses on another occasion, they "waste their sweetness
on the desert air. "
In matters of humor and entertainment there can be no reason
to apprehend a deficiency. Wit is naturally a volunteer, delights
in action, and under proper discipline is capable of great exe-
cution. 'Tis a perfect master in the art of bush-fighting; and
though it attacks with more subtilty than science, has often
defeated a whole regiment of heavy artillery. Though I have
rather exceeded the line of gravity in this description of wit, I
am unwilling to dismiss it without being a little more serious.
'Tis a qualification which, like the passions, has a natural wild-
ness that requires governing. Left to itself, it soon overflows
its banks, mixes with common filth, and brings disrepute on the
fountain. We have many valuable springs of it in America,
which at present run purer streams than the generality of it in
other countries. In France and Italy, 'tis froth highly fomented.
In England it has much of the same spirit, but rather a browner
complexion. European wit is one of the worst articles we can
import. It has an intoxicating power with it, which debauches.
the very vitals of chastity, and gives a false coloring to every.
thing it censures or defends. We soon grow fatigued with the
excess, and withdraw like gluttons sickened with intemperance.
On the contrary, how happily are the sallies of innocent humor
calculated to amuse and sweeten the vacancy of business! We
enjoy the harmless luxury without surfeiting, and strengthen the
spirits by relaxing them.
I consider a magazine as a kind of beehive, which both
allures the swarm and provides room to store their sweets. Its
division into cells gives every bee a province of his own; and
though they all produce honey, yet perhaps they differ in their
taste for flowers, and extract with greater dexterity from one
than from another. Thus we are not all Philosophers, all Artists,
nor all Poets.


## p. 10988 (#200) ##########################################

10988
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
(1796-1881)
N THE preface to the fourth volume of his 'History of New
England,' John Gorham Palfrey sets forth his conception of
the significance of the work upon which he is engaged.
"The history of New England," he writes, "is considered to be dry and
unpicturesque. But by peculiar titles it deserves, beyond the record of dynas-
tic intrigues and wars, to be known to the philosophical student of man and
society, of Divine Providence, and of the progress of the race. In more stir-
ring narratives one may read of the conflicts of furious human passions, of
the baseness of men in high degree, of revo-
lutions due to thing worthy and issuing in
nothing profitable. In the colonial history of
New England, we follow the strenuous action
of intelligent and honest men in building up a
free, strong, enlightened, and happy State. With
sagacity, promptitude, patience, and constancy,
they hold their ground from age to age. Each
generation trains the next in the lessons of lib-
erty, and advances it to further attainments;
and when the time comes for the result of the
modest process to be disclosed, behold the estab-
lishment of the political independence of America,
and the boundless spread of principles which are
working for good in the politics of the world. »

JOHN G. PALFREY
Mr. Palfrey's New England ancestry must
have influenced him not a little in forming this estimate of the im-
portance of New England's development in the economy of interna-
tional affairs. He himself was of a prominent Massachusetts family;
his blood was rich in traditions of honor and godliness; he was an
outgrowth of the soil upon which many generations had fought for
the maintenance of high principles. His grandfather, Colonel William
Palfrey, had been a paymaster-general in the Revolutionary army.
Later he was appointed by the young Republic consul-general to
France, but the vessel on which he sailed was lost at sea. John
Gorham Palfrey was born at Boston in 1796. He graduated from
Harvard in 1815, and in 1818 he accepted the charge of the Brattle
Street Unitarian Church in his native city. The ministry was not


## p. 10989 (#201) ##########################################

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
10989
altogether congenial to him, and he entered gradually into other
fields of activity. From 1831 to 1839 he held the Dexter professor-
ship of Sacred Literature at Harvard; and from 1836 to 1843 he
edited the North American Review. Towards the close of his editor-
ship he was drawn into politics, or rather into the dignified and
wholly worthy political life possible to a New England gentleman
fifty years ago.
He was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature
in 1842; from 1844 to 1847 he was Secretary of State. The anti-
slavery movement was attaining strength in the East during these
years: Ir. Palfrey, who was a strong abolitionist, contributed a series
of articles to the Boston Whig on the 'Progress of the Slave Power. '
In 1847 he was sent to Congress as an anti-slavery Whig. Subse-
quently he was defeated in an election for the governorship of Mas-
sachusetts. After this defeat he devoted himself exclusively to his
literary labors, taking office only once again, when from 1861 to 1866
he held the postmastership of Boston. He died at Cambridge in
1881.
Among Mr. Palfrey's minor works are his biography of his grand-
father in Jared Sparks's 'Dictionary of American Biography'; his
lectures on the Jewish Scriptures and Antiquities, and his 'Evi-
dences of Christianity. ' His chief claim to distinction as a man of
letters is founded, however, upon his 'History of New England. '
The first three volumes of this important and significant work con-
tain the record of New England's development under the Stuart
dynasty. The fourth and fifth volumes bring the narrative to the
year 1765.
Mr. Palfrey's merits as a historian are chiefly those of scholar-
ship. He has drawn freely upon a large number of sources for the
material of his work, and he has made organic use of this material.
His historical record; while lacking in dramatic and humanistic ele-
ments, is remarkable for its clarity and dignity. It is written with
the candor and sympathy of one who has become the spiritual heir
to the fruits of the struggles which he describes. Through his schol-
arship, and through his catholic view of the significance of history,
he is entitled to high rank among American historians.


## p. 10990 (#202) ##########################################

10990
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
SALEM WITCHCRAFT
From A Compendious History of New England.
Gorham Palfrey; 1883, by John Carver Palfrey.
of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers.
Copyright 1873, by John
Reprinted by permission
He found
A
YET worse trouble confronted the new Governor.
a part of the people whom he was to rule in a state of
distress and consternation, by reason of certain terrible
manifestations during the last few weeks before his coming, at-
tributed by them to the agency of the Devil, and of wicked men,
women, and children, whom he had confederated with himself,
and was using as his instruments.
The people of Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, like
all other Christian people at that time and later, at least,
with extremely rare individual exceptions,-believed in the real-
ity of a hideous crime called witchcraft. They thought they had
Scripture for that belief, and they knew they had law for it,
explicit and abundant; and with them law and Scripture were
absolute authorities for the regulation of opinion and of conduct.
In a few instances, witches were believed to have appeared
in the earlier years of New England. But the cases had been
sporadic. The first instance of an execution for witchcraft is said
to have occurred in Connecticut, soon after the settlement [1647,
May 30th]; but the circumstances are not known, and the fact
has been doubted. A year later, one Margaret Jones, of Charles-
town in Massachusetts, and it has been said, two other women
in Dorchester and Cambridge, were convicted and executed for
the goblin crime. These cases appear to have excited no more
attention than would have been given to the commission of any
other felony, and no judicial record of them survives. A case
much more observed was that of Mrs. Ann Hibbins, the widow
of an immigrant of special distinction. He had been agent for
the colony in England, and one of the Assistants. He had lost
his property, and the melancholy and ill-temper to which his dis-
appointed wife gave way appear to have exposed her to miscon-
structions and hatred; in the sequel of which she was convicted.
as a witch, and after some opposition on the part of the magis-
trates was hanged [1656, June].
With three or four exceptions,- for the evidence respecting
the asserted sufferers at Dorchester and Cambridge is imperfect,
no person appears to have been punished for witchcraft in


## p. 10991 (#203) ##########################################

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
10991
Massachusetts, nor convicted of it, for more than sixty years.
after the settlement, though there had been three or four trials
of other persons suspected of the crime. At the time when the
question respecting the colonial charter was rapidly approaching
an issue, and the public mind was in feverish agitation, the min-
isters sent out a paper of proposals for collecting facts concern-
ing witchcraft [1681, May]. This brought out a work from
President Mather entitled 'Illustrious Providences,' in which that
influential person related numerous stories of the performances of
persons leagued with the Devil [1684, January 31st].
The imagination of his restless young son was stimulated, and
circumstances fed the flame. In the last year of the government
of Andros [1688], a daughter, thirteen years old, of John Good-
win,- a mason living at the South End of Boston,-had a quar-
rel with an Irish washerwoman about some missing clothes. The
woman's mother took it up, and scolded provokingly. Thereupon
the wicked child, profiting, as it seems, by what she had been
hearing and reading on the mysterious subject, "cried out upon
her," as the phrase was, as a witch, and proceeded to act the
part understood to be fit for a bewitched person; in which be-
havior she was presently joined by three others of the circle, one
of them only four or five years old. Now they would lose their
hearing, now their sight, now their speech; and sometimes all
three faculties at once. They mewed like kittens; they barked
like dogs. They could read fluently in Quaker books, in the
'Oxford Jests,' and in the Book of Common Prayer'; but not in
the 'Westminster Catechism,' nor in John Cotton's 'Milk for
Babes. ' Cotton Mather prayed with one of them; but she lost
her hearing, he says, when he began, and recovered it as soon
as he finished. Four Boston ministers and one of Charlestown
held a meeting, and passed a day in fasting and prayer, by which
exorcism the youngest imp was "delivered. " The poor woman,
crazed with all this pother, if in her right mind before, and
defending herself unskillfully in her foreign gibberish and with
the volubility of her race, was interpreted as making some con-
fession. A gossiping witness testified that six years before, she
had heard another woman say that she had seen the accused
come down a chimney. She was required to repeat the Lord's
Prayer in English,- an approved test; but being a Catholic, she
had never learned it in that language. She could recite it, after
a fashion, in Latin; but she was no scholar, and made some
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## p. 10992 (#204) ##########################################

10992
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
mistakes. The helpless wretch was convicted and sent to the
gallows.
Cotton Mather took the oldest "afflicted" girl to his house,
where she dexterously played upon his self-conceit to stimulate
his credulity. She satisfied him that Satan regarded him as his
most terrible enemy, and avoided him with especial awe. When
he prayed or read in the Bible, she was seized with convulsion
fits. When he called to family devotion, she would whistle, and
sing, and scream, and pretend to try to strike and kick him; but
her blows would be stopped before reaching his body, indicating
that he was unassailable by the Evil One. Mather published an
account of these transactions, with a collection of other appro-
priate matter. The treatise circulated not only in Massachusetts,
but widely also in England, where it obtained the warm com-
mendation of Richard Baxter; and it may be supposed to have
had an important effect in producing the more disastrous delusion.
which followed three years after. The Goodwin children soon
got well in other words, they were tired of their atrocious fool-
ery; and the death of their victim gave them a pretense for a
return to decent behavior.
Mr. Samuel Parris was minister of a church in a part of
Salem which was then called Salem Village, and which now as
a separate town is known by the name of Danvers. He was a
man of talents, and of repute for professional endowments, but
avaricious and wrong-headed. Among his parishioners, at the
time of his settlement and afterwards, there had been angry dis-
putes about the election of a minister, which had never been
composed. Neighbors and relations were embittered against each
other. Elizabeth Parris, the minister's daughter, was now nine
years old. A niece of his, eleven years old, lived in his family.
His neighbor, Thomas Putnam, the parish clerk, had a daughter
named Ann, twelve years of age. These children, with a few
other young women, of whom two were as old as twenty years
or thereabouts, had become possessed with a wild curiosity about
the sorceries of which they had been hearing and reading, and
used to hold meetings for study, if it may be so called, and
practice. They learned to go through motions similar to those
which had lately made the Goodwin children so famous. They
forced their limbs into grotesque postures, uttered unnatural out-
cries, were seized with cramps and spasms, became incapable of
speech and of motion. By-and-by they interrupted public worship.


## p. 10993 (#205) ##########################################

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
10993
Abigail Williams, Parris's niece, called aloud in church to the
minister to "stand up and name his text. " Ann Putnam cried
out, "There is a yellow bird sitting on the minister's hat, as it
hangs on the pin in the pulpit. " The families were distressed.
The neighbors were alarmed. The physicians were perplexed
and baffled, and at length declared that nothing short of witch-
craft was the trouble.
The families of the "afflicted children" assembled for fasting
and prayer. Then the neighboring ministers were sent for, and
held at Mr. Parris's house a prayer-meeting which lasted through
the day. The children performed in their presence, and the
result was a confirmation by the ministers of the opinion of the
doctors. Of course the next inquiry was by whom the manifest
witchcraft was exercised. It was presumed that the unhappy
girls could give the answer. For a time they refused to do so.
But at length, yielding to an importunity which it had become
difficult to escape unless by an avowal of their fraud, they pro-
nounced the names of Good, Osborn, and Tituba.
Tituba-half Indian, half negro-was a servant of Mr. Par-
ris, brought by him from the West India Islands or the Spanish
Main, where he had formerly been a merchant. Sarah Good was
an old woman, miserably poor. Sarah Osborn had been prosper-
ous in early life. She had been married twice, and her second
husband was still living, but separated from her. Her reputation
was not good, and for some time she had been bedridden, and
in a disturbed nervous state. In the meeting-house of Salem.
village [March 1st], with great solemnity, and in the presence of
a vast crowd, the three accused persons were arraigned before
John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin, of Salem, members of the
Colonial Council. The "afflicted children" were confronted with
them; prayer was made; and the examination proceeded with a
questioning of Sarah Good, the other prisoners being for the
time withdrawn.
When Good declared that she was falsely accused, Hathorne
"desired the children all of them to look at her;
and so
they all did; . . . and presently they were all tormented. ”
The prisoner was made to touch them, and then their torment
ceased; the received doctrine being that by this contact the Sa-
tanic influence which had been emitted from the witch was drawn
back into her. Similar proceedings were had with the other two
prisoners. Tituba, whether in collusion with her young mistress,
XIX-688


## p. 10994 (#206) ##########################################

10994
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
or as was afterwards said, in consequence of having been scourged
by Mr. Parris, confessed herself to be a witch, and charged Good
and Osborn with being her accomplices. The evidence was then
thought unexceptionable, and the three were committed to jail
for trial.
Martha Corey and Rebecca Nourse were next cried out
against. Both were church-members of excellent character; the
latter seventy years of age. They were examined by the same
magistrates, and sent to prison [March 21st- March 24th], and
with them a child of Sarah Good, only four or five years old,
also charged with diabolical practices. Mr. Parris preached upon
the text,
"Hav not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a
devil? " Sarah Cloyse, understanding the allusion to be to Nourse,
who was her sister, went out of church, and was accordingly
cried out upon, examined, and committed. Elizabeth Procter was
another person charged. The Deputy-Governor and five magis-
trates came to Salem for the examination of the two prisoners
last named [April 11th]. Procter appealed to one of the children
who was accusing her. "Dear child," she said, "it is not so;
there is another judgment, dear child:" and presently they de-
nounced as a witch her husband, who stood by her side [April
18th]. A week afterwards, warrants were issued for the appre-
hension of four other suspected persons; and a few days later
[April 30th] for three others, one of whom, Philip English, was
the principal merchant of Salem. On the same day, on the in-
formation of one of the possessed girls, an order was sent to
Maine for the arrest of George Burroughs, formerly a candidate
for the ministry at Salem Village, and now minister of Wells.
The witness said that Burroughs, besides being a wizard, had
killed his first two wives, and other persons whose ghosts has
appeared to her and denounced him.
Charges now came in rapidly. George Jacobs, an old man,
and his granddaughter, were sent to prison [May 10th]. "You
tax me for a wizard," said he to the magistrates: "you may as
well tax me for a buzzard; I have done no harm. " They tried
him with repeating the Lord's Prayer, which it was thought
impossible for a witch to do. According to Parris's record, "he
missed in several parts of it. " His accusers persisted. "Well,
burn me or hang me," said he, "I will stand in the truth of
Christ; I know nothing of the matter, any more than the child
that was born to-night. " Among others, John Willard was now


## p. 10995 (#207) ##########################################

JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
10995
apprehended. As a constable he had served in the arrest and
custody of some of the reputed witches. But he came to see the
absurdity of the thing, and was said to have uttered something
to the effect that it was the magistrates that were bewitched,
and those who cheered them on. Willard was forthwith cried
out against as a wizard, and committed for trial [May 18th].
Affairs were in this condition when the King's Governor
arrived [May 14th]. About a hundred alleged witches were now
in jail, awaiting trial. Their case was one of the first matters
to which his attention was called. Without authority for so.
doing,- for by the charter which he represented, the establish-
ment of judicial courts was a function of the General Court,— he
proceeded to institute a special commission of Oyer and Ter-
miner, consisting of seven magistrates, first of whom was the
hard, obstinate, narrow-minded Stoughton. The commissioners
applied themselves to their office without delay. Their first act
[June 2d] was to try Bridget Bishop, against whom an accusation.
twenty years old, and retracted by its author on his death-bed,
had been revived. The court sentenced her to die by hanging,
and she was accordingly hanged at the end of eight days. Cot-
ton Mather, in his account of the proceedings, relates that as
she passed along the street under guard, Bishop "had given a
look towards the great and spacious meeting-house of Salem, and
immediately a dæmon, invisibly entering the house, tore down
a part of it. " It may be guessed that a plank or a partition had
given way under the pressure of the crowd of lookers-on col-
lected for so extraordinary a spectacle.
At the end of another four weeks the court sat again [June
30th], and sentenced five women, two of Salem, and one each of
Amesbury, Ipswich, and Topsfield, all of whom were executed,
protesting their innocence [July 19th]. In respect to one of them,
Rebecca Nourse, a matron eminent for piety and goodness, a ver-
dict of acquittal was first rendered. But Stoughton sent the jury
out again, reminding them that in her examination, in reference
to certain witnesses against her who had confessed their own guilt,
she had used the expression, "they came among us. " Nourse
was deaf, and did not catch what had been going on. When
it was afterwards repeated to her, she said that by the coming
among us she meant that they had been in prison together. But
the jury adopted the court's interpretation of the words as sig-
nifying an acknowledgment that they had met at a witch orgy.


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10996
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
The Governor was disposed to grant her a pardon. But Parris,
who had an ancient grudge against her, interfered and prevailed.
On the last communion day before her execution, she was taken
into church, and formally excommunicated by Noyes, her min-
ister.
Of six persons tried at the next session of the court [August
5th], the Reverend George Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard
College, was one. At a certain point of the proceedings the
young people pretending to have suffered from him stood mute.
Stoughton asked who hindered them from telling their story.
"The Devil, I suppose," said Burroughs. "Why should the Devil
be so careful to suppress evidence against you? " retorted the
judge, and with the jury this encounter of wits told hardly
against the prisoner [August 19th]. His behavior at his execu-
tion strongly impressed the spectators in his favor. "When he
was upon the ladder, he made a speech for the clearing of his
innocency, with such solemn and serious expressions as were to
the admiration of all present. His prayer (which he concluded
by repeating the Lord's Prayer) was so well worded, and uttered.
with such composedness, and such (at least, seeming) fervency of
spirit as was very affecting, and drew tears from many, so that
it seemed to many the spectators would hinder the execution.
Cotton Mather, who was present on horseback, made them a
quieting harangue. The accusers said the Black Man stood and
dictated to him. "
In the course of the next month, in which the Governor left
Boston for a short tour of inspection in the Eastern country,
fifteen persons-six women in one day, and on another eight
women and one man were tried, convicted, and sentenced.
Eight of them were hanged [September 9th, September 17th,
September 22d, September 19th]. The brave Giles Corey, eighty
years of age, being arraigned, refused to plead. He said that the
whole thing was an imposture, and that it was of no use to put
himself on his trial, for every trial had ended in a conviction,—
which was the fact. It is shocking to relate that, suffering the
penalty of the English common law for a contumacious refusal
to answer, the peine forte et dure,-he was pressed to death.
with heavy weights laid on his body. By not pleading he in-
tended to protect the inheritance of his children, which, as he
had been informed, would by a conviction of felony have been
forfeit to the crown.
-
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JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
10997
In the following month [October] the malady broke out in
another neighborhood. One Ballard, of the town of Andover,
whose wife was ill in a way that perplexed their medical friend,
sent to Salem to see what light could be obtained from the witch-
detectors there. A party of them came to his help, and went
to work with vigor. More than fifty persons at Andover fell
under accusation, some of the weaker minded of whom were
brought to confess themselves guilty not only of afflicting their
neighbors, but of practicing such exercises as riding on animals
and on sticks through the air.
There were no executions, however, after those which have
been mentioned as occurring on one day of each of four suc
cessive months. There had been twenty human victims, Corey
included; besides two dogs, their accomplices in the mysterious
crime. Fifty persons had obtained a pardon by confessing; a
hundred and fifty were in prison awaiting trial; and charges had
been made against two hundred more. The accusers were now
flying at high quarries. Hezekiah Usher, known to the reader as
an ancient magistrate of fair consideration, was complained of;
and Mrs. Thacher, mother-in-law of Corwin, the justice who had
taken the earliest examinations. Zeal in pushing forward the
prosecutions began to seem dangerous; for what was to prevent
an accused person from securing himself by confession, and then
revenging himself on the accuser by arraigning him as a former
ally?
Mrs. Hale, wife of the minister of Beverly who had been
active in the prosecutions, and Dudley Bradstreet of Andover,
the old Governor's son, who had granted warrants for the com-
mitment of some thirty or forty alleged witches, were now
accused. The famous name of John Allyn, Secretary of Con-
necticut, was uttered in whispers. There had even begun to
be a muttering about Lady Phips, the Governor's wife; and Mr.
Willard, then minister of the Old South Church in Boston, and
afterwards head of the College, who, after yielding to the infat-
uation in its earliest stage, had made himself obnoxious and
suspected by partially retracing his steps. People began now to
be almost as wild with the fear of being charged with witchcraft,
or having the charge made against their friends, as they had
been with the fear of suffering from its spells. The visitation,
shocking as it had been, had been local. It had been almost
confined to some towns of Essex County. In other parts of the


## p. 10998 (#210) ##########################################

10998
JOHN GORHAM PALFREY
province the public mind was calmer, or was turned in the dif-
ferent direction of disgust at the insane tragedies, and dread of
their repetition. A person in Boston, whose name had begun to
be used dangerously by the informers at Andover, instituted an
action for defamation, laying his damages at a thousand pounds;
a measure which, while it would probably have been ruinous to
him had he made a mistake in choosing his time, was now found,
at the turning of the tide, to have a wholesome effect.
After the convictions which were last mentioned, the Com-
mission Court which had conducted the trials adjourned for two
months. Thanks to the good sense of the people, it never met
again. Before the time designated for its next session, the Gen-
eral Court of the Province assembled, and the cry of the op-
pressed and miserable came to their ear.