University of Virginia Library

6. CHAP. VI.

Having thus provided for the temporary security
of New Amsterdam, and guarded it against
any sudden surprise, the gallant Peter took a hearty
pinch of snuff, and snapping his fingers, set the
great council of Amphyctions, aud their champion,
the doughty Alicxsander Partridg at defiance. It
is impossible to say, notwithstanding, what might
have been the issue of this affair, had not the great
council been all at once involved in huge perplexity,
and as much horrible dissension sown among its
members, as of yore was stirred up in the camp of
the brawling warriors of Greece.

The all potent council of the league, as I have
shewn in my last chapter, had already announced its
hostile determinations, and already was the mighty
colony of New Haven and the puissant town of Pyquag,
otherwise called Wethersfield—famous for
its onions and its witches—and the great trading
house of Hartford, and all the other redoubtable little
border towns, in a prodigious turmoil, furbishing
up their rusty fowling pieces and shouting aloud for
war; by which they anticipated easy conquests, and

gorgeous spoils, from the little fat dutch villages.
But this joyous brawling was soon silenced by the
conduct of the colony of Massachusetts. Struck
with the gallant spirit of the brave old Peter, and
convinced by the chivalric frankness and heroic
warmth of his vindication, they refused to believe
him guilty of the infamous plot most wrongfully
laid at his door. With a generosity for which I
would yield them immortal honour, they declared,
that no determination of the grand council of the
league, should bind the general court of Massachusetts,
to join in an offensive war, which should appear
to such general court to be unjust.[5]

This refusal immediately involved the colony
of Massachusetts and the other combined colonies,
in very serious difficulties and disputes, and would
no doubt have produced a dissolution of the confederacy,
but that the great council of Amphyctions,
finding that they could not stand alone, if mutilated
by the loss of so important a member as Massachusetts,
were fain to abandon for the present their hostile
machinations against the Manhattoes. Such is
the marvellous energy and puissance of those notable
confederacies, composed of a number of sturdy,
self-will'd, discordant parts, loosely banded together
by a puny general government. As it is however,
the warlike towns of Connecticut, had no

cause to deplore this disappointment of their martial
ardour; for by my faith—though the combined
powers of the league might have been too potent
in the end, for the robustious warriors of the Manhattoes—yet
in the interim would the lion hearted
Peter and his myrmidons, have choaked the stomachful
heroes of Pyquag with their own onions,
and have given the other little border towns such a
scouring, that I warrant they would have had no
stomach to squat on the land, or invade the hen-roost
of a New Nederlander for a century to come.

Indeed there was more than one cause to divert
the attention of the good people of the east, from
their hostile purposes; for just about this time were
they horribly beleagured and harassed by the inroads
of the prince of darkness, divers of whose
liege subjects they detected, lurking within their
camp, all of whom they incontinently roasted as so
many spies, and dangerous enemies. Not to speak
in parables, we are informed, that at this juncture,
the unfortunate “east countrie” was exceedingly
troubled and confounded by multitudes of losel
witches, who wrought strange devices to beguile
and distress the multitude; and notwithstanding numerous
judicious and bloody laws had been enacted,
against all “solem conversing or compacting with
the divil, by way of conjuracon or the like,”[6] yet

did the dark crime of witchcraft continue to encrease
to an alarming degree, that would almost
transcend belief, were not the fact too well authenticated
to be even doubted for an instant.

What is particularly worthy of admiration is,
that this terrible art, which so long has baffled the
painful researches, and abstruse studies of philosophers,
astrologers, alchymists, theurgists and other
sages, was chiefly confined to the most ignorant,
decrepid, ugly, abominable old women in the community,
who had scarcely more brains than the
broomsticks they rode upon. Where they first acquired
their infernal education—whether from the
works of the ancient Theurgists—the demonology
of the Egyptians—the belomancy, or divination by
arrows of the Scythians—the spectrology of the
Germans—the magic of the Persians—the enchantment
of the Laplanders, or from the archives of
the dark and mysterious caverns of the Dom Daniel,
is a question pregnant with a host of learned
and ingenious doubts—particularly as most of them
were totally unversed in the occult mysteries of the
alphabet.

When once an alarm is sounded, the public,
who love dearly to be in a panic, are not long in
want of proofs to support it—raise but the cry of
yellow fever, and immediately every head-ache,
and indigestion, and overflowing of the bile is pronounced
the terrible epidemic—In like manner in

the present instance, whoever was troubled with a
cholic or lumbago, was sure to be bewitched, and
woe to any unlucky old woman that lived in his
neighbourhood. Such a howling abomination could
not be suffered to remain long unnoticed, and it accordingly
soon attracted the fiery indignation of the
sober and reflective part of the community—more
especially of those, who, whilome, had evinced so
much active benevolence in the conversion of quakers
and anabaptists. The grand council of the
amphyctions publicly set their faces against so
deadly and dangerous a sin, and a severe scrutiny
took place after those nefarious witches, who were
easily detected by devil's pinches, black cats, broomsticks,
and the circumstance of their only being
able to weep three tears, and those out of the left
eye.

It is incredible the number of offences that were
detected, “for every one of which,” says the profound
and reverend Cotton Mather, in that excellent
work, the history of New England—“we have
such a sufficient evidence, that no reasonable man
in this whole country ever did question them; and
it will be unreasonable to do it in any other.”[7]

Indeed, that authentic and judicious historian
John Josselyn, Gent. furnishes us with unquestionable
facts on this subject. “There are none,” observes

he “that beg in this country, but there be
witches too many—bottle bellied witches and others,
that produce many strange apparitions, if you will believe
report of a shalop at sea manned with women
—and of a ship and great red horse standing by the
main mast; the ship being in a small cove to the eastward
vanished of a sudden,” &c.

The number of delinquents, however, and their
magical devices, were not more remarkable than
their diabolical obstinacy. Though exhorted in the
most solemn, persuasive and affectionate manner,
to confess themselves guilty, and be burnt for the
good of religion, and the entertainment of the public;
yet did they most pertinaciously persist in asserting
their innocence. Such incredible obstinacy
was in itself deserving of immediate punishment,
and was sufficient proof, if proof were necessary,
that they were in league with the devil, who is perverseness
itself. But their judges were just and
merciful, and were determined to punish none that
were not convicted on the best of testimony; not
that they needed any evidence to satisfy their
own minds, for, like true and experienced judges
their minds were perfectly made up, and they
were thoroughly satisfied of the guilt of the
prisoners before they proceeded to try them; but
still something was necessary to convince the
community at large—to quiet those prying quid
nuncs who should come after them—in short, the

world must be satisfied. Oh the world—the world!
—all the world knows the world of trouble the world
is eternally occasioning!—The worthy judges therefore,
like myself in this most authentic, minute and
satisfactory of all histories, were driven to the necessity
of sifting, detecting and making evident as
noon day, matters which were at the commencement
all clearly understood and firmly decided upon
in their own own pericraniums—so that it may truly
be said, that the witches were burnt, to gratify the
populace of the day—but were tried for the satisfaction
of the whole world that should come after
them!

Finding therefore that neither exhortation, sound
reason, nor friendly entreaty had any avail on these
hardened offenders, they resorted to the more urgent
arguments of the torture, and having thus absolutely
wrung the truth from their stubborn lips—
they condemned them to undergo the roasting due
unto the heinous crimes they had confessed. Some
even carried their perverseness so far, as to expire
under the torture, protesting their innocence to the
last; but these were looked upon as thoroughly and
absolutely possessed, and governed by the devil,
and the pious bye-standers, only lamented that they
had not lived a little longer, to have perished in the
flames.

In the city of Ephesus, we are told, that the
plague was expelled by stoning a ragged old beggar

to death, whom Appolonius pointed out as being
the evil spirit that caused it, and who actually
shewed himself to be a demon, by changing into a
shagged dog. In like manner, and by measures
equally sagacious, a salutary check was given to
this growing evil. The witches were all burnt,
banished or panic struck, and in a little while
there was not an ugly old woman to be found
throughout New England—which is doubtless one
reason why all their young women are so handsome.
Those honest folk who had suffered from their incantations
gradually recovered, excepting such as
had been afflicted with twitches and aches, which,
however assumed the less alarming aspects of rheumatisms,
sciatics and lumbagos—and the good
people of New England, abandoning the study of
the occult sciences, turned their attention to the
more profitable hocus pocus of trade, and soon became
expert in the legerdemain art of turning a penny.
Still however, a tinge of the old leaven is discernable,
even unto this day, in their characters—
witches occasionally start up among them in different
disguises, as physicians, civilians, and divines.
The people at large shew a 'cuteness, a cleverness,
and a profundity of wisdom, that savours strongly
of witchcraft—and it has been remarked, that whenever
any stones fall from the moon, the greater part
of them are sure to tumble into New England!