Notes
[[104]]
Wilhelm Adolf Scribonius, a Hessian scholar, is best known in the
literature of witchcraft as the chief advocate of the water ordeal (see p. 21,
above) for the detection of witches. This story is told on ff. 82-83 of his
Physiologia Sagarum (Marburg, 1588 — the full title is De Sagarum
Natura et Potestate, deque his recte cognoscendis et puniendis
Physiologia), and in English by Baxter, Worlds of
Spirits, p. 104.
[[105]]
As to this “plot of the Devil,” see Mather's own words
(Wonders, pp. 16-19, 25, not here reprinted):
“we have been advised... that a Malefactor, accused of Witchcraft as well
as Murder, and Executed in this place more than Forty Years ago, did then give
Notice of An Horrible Plot against the Country by Witchcraft, and a Foundation
of Witchcraft then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered would
probably Blow up, and pull down all the Churches in the Country.”
“We have now with Horror,” he adds, “seen the Discovery
of such a Witchcraft!” and from the confessions at Salem he learns that
“at prodigious Witch-Meetings the Wretches have proceeded so far as to
Concert and Consult the Methods of Rooting out the Christian Religion from this
Country” and setting up instead of it a “Diabolism.” Not
even this is all: “it may be fear'd that, in the Horrible Tempest which is
now upon ourselves, the design of the Devil is to sink that Happy Settlement of
Government wherewith Almighty God has graciously enclined Their Majesties to
favour us.”
[[106]]
It is of England, of course, that he speaks.
[[107]]
As to Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton, head of the court which had tried
the witch cases, see above, p. 183 and note 2, and pp.
196-201. His “shield” means the following letter.
[[108]]
Doubtless the Rev. John Wilson (d. 1667), the first minister of
Boston.
[[109]]
There now follow the miscellaneous matters described in the introduction,
making up more than half of his volume.
[[110]]
He must at least have been present at some of the examinations (like
those described by Lawson) preceding the trials; for in his Diary (I. 151), commending the judges, he adds,
“and my Compassion, upon the Sight of their Difficulties, raised by my
Journeyes to Salem, the chief Seat of these diabolical Vexations, caused mee yett
more to do so.” From attending the trials he had excused himself (see the
letter mentioned on p. 194, note 5) on the score of ill health.
[[111]]
From the governor; see above, p. 194, and p.
250.
[[112]]
See introduction.
[[113]]
Meaning, doubtless, Hale and Noyes. See p. 206,
above.
[[114]]
This is the second paragraph in the reply of the ministers of Boston, June
15, 1692, to the request of the governor and Council for advice. (See p.
194, above.) It was drawn up by Cotton Mather himself.
[[115]]
What next follows, very cleverly ensuring a friendly attitude toward the
Salem court, is an account of the English witch-trial of 1664 before Sir Matthew
Hale. It is abridged from the well-known booklet (A Tryal
of Witches at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds, etc.) published at
London in 1682, which had been a guide to the Salem judges (see p. 416,
below).
