Part 28

The little Carrier children were very instructive witnesses. Too young and inexperienced to do otherwise than answer simple questions directly in such language as was common, they show us of to-day, better than do older witnesses, what was probably common application of some terms of very frequent use in descriptions of things marvelous. When by implication charged with being themselves witches, their answers conceded the truth of the charge. One of them, eight years old, said she had been a witch ever since she was six. Another, eighteen years old, had been a witch about five weeks, and said that brother Andrew had been such "near a month." Little did these frank and no doubt truthful young confessors of family and personal experiences deem that they were exposing themselves, and their mother also, to punishment by death. What they confessed to were frequent sights and sounds in their home, which came as naturally and innocently before them as the visits and words of friends and neighbors. Community called such matters witchcrafts, and why should not these children do the same? Their mental powers were not expanded enough to even entertain the slightest apprehension that what they were saying could imply that they had made a compact with the devil, or that a simple, true statement of their unsought experiences could bring harm to themselves or any one else. Equally incompetent were such little ones to comprehend the nature of that devil who existed in the conception of the magistrate when he asked whether the devil had insnared the witness and brother Andrew. They, no doubt, held the common notion that any worker whatsoever from realms unseen by the external eye was the devil; and having had experience--at least one of them had--that her own spirit had gone forth from her body and pinched certain persons, she understood that she had performed a part in works which were imputed to the devil. Still neither of these children confessed, or could be "insnared" to own, that they had seen _the devil_.

They, obviously, and their mother, we do not doubt, often as naturally and innocently beheld spirit forms and scenes, and just as innocently held converse with spirits, as they surveyed the scenes and forms of the outer world, or went in company with embodied people to their congregations in the meeting-house or elsewhere. The words of babes and sucklings, at a witchcraft trial, revealed the existence of finer natural laws and forces, and their operation also, upon and through some human beings, than science then dreamed of, or is yet quite ready to recognize. Very much in witchcraft times was charged to the devil which should have been credited to God. The erroneous entry of many heavy items on the great account-books, in the days of the fathers, calls for immense labor and study for their proper and equitable adjustment now. Martha Carrier and her children were probably posted on the wrong side of the moral Ledger when Cotton Mather labeled her "Rampant Hag;" and there they have stood ever since.

REV. GEORGE BURROUGHS.

Having come to the last of the accused whose case our leading purpose induces us to notice at much length, we present here a specimen of indictment for the crime of witchcraft.

"THE INDICTMENT OF GEORGE BURROUGHS.

Essex } _Anno Regni Regis et Reginae Willielmi et_ ss. } _Mariae. Nunc Angliae, &c., quarto._

"The jurors of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, _present_--That George Burroughs, late of Falmouth, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, clerk, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord and lady, William and Mary, by the grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland king and queen, defenders of the faith, &c., and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts, called witchcrafts and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practiced, and exercised, at and within the township of Salem, in the county of Essex aforesaid, in, upon, and against one Mary Walcutt, of Salem Village, in the county of Essex, single woman; by which said wicked arts the said Mary Walcutt, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year abovesaid, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided.

"Witnesses: MARY WALCOTT, SARAH VIBBER, MERCY LEWIS, ANN PUTNAM, ELIZ. HUBBARD.

"Indorsed by the grand jury, _Billa vera_."

Three other similar indictments accompanied the above, for witchcrafts practiced by Burroughs upon Elizabeth Hubbard, Mercy Lewis, and Ann Putnam severally.

S. P. Fowler, in the edition of "Salem Witchcraft" edited by him, says, on page 278,--

"The trial of Rev. Geo. Burroughs appears to have attracted general notice from the circumstance of his being a former clergyman in Salem Village, and supposed to be a leader amongst witches."

Fowler adds, that--

"Dr. Cotton Mather says he was not present at any of the trials for witchcraft; how he could keep away from that of Burroughs we cannot imagine. His father, Dr. Increase Mather, informs us that he attended this single trial, and says, 'Had I been one of George Burroughs's judges, I could not have acquitted him, for several persons did upon oath testify that they saw him do such things as no man that had not a devil to be his familiar could perform.'

"Burroughs was apprehended in Wells, in Maine; so say his children. They also inform us that he was buried by his friends, after the inhuman treatment of his body from the hands of his executioners at Gallows Hill, in Salem.

"He is represented as being a small, black-haired dark-complexioned man, of quick passions and great strength. His power of muscle, which discovered itself early when Burroughs was a member of Cambridge College, and which we notice in the slight rebutting evidence offered by his friends at his trial, convinces us that he lifted the gun, and the barrel of molasses, by the power of his own well-strung muscles, and not by any help from the devil, as was supposed by the Mathers, both father and son. Alas, that a man's own strong arm should prove his ruin!"

We shall show shortly that this commentator here overlooked an important point. Burroughs himself made statement, in his own defense, that an Indian stood by and lifted the gun; therefore the chief question is not whether Burroughs was himself strong enough to lift it as alleged, but whether he told the truth when he said that he had help. The chief question bears upon his veracity, not upon his strength. The Mathers believed him on that point.

The allegations in the indictment were for witchcrafts invisibly practiced upon members of the famous CIRCLE, and not for visible feats of strength. All the girls testified to seeing and suffering from his apparition. Also some who confessed to having been _witches_ themselves (for some accused ones were over-persuaded to speak of their own clairvoyant observations and experiences as witchcrafts, and therefore of themselves as witches),--some such testified thus, as Mather says (p. 279, _Salem Witchcraft_). "He was accused by eight of the confessing witches as being head actor at some of their hellish rendezvous, and who had promise of being a king in Satan's kingdom now going to be erected; he was accused by nine persons for extraordinary liftings, ... and for other things, ... until about thirty testimonies were brought in against him."

Mather's account of the witchcraft at Salem was drawn up at the request of William Phips, then governor of the province; and two prominent judges at the trials indorsed it as follows:--

"The reverend and worthy author having, at the direction of his Excellency the governor, so far obliged the public as to give some account of the sufferings brought upon the country by witchcrafts, and of the trials which have passed upon several executed for the same:

"Upon perusal thereof, _we find the matters of fact and evidence truly reported_, and a prospect given of the methods of conviction used in the proceedings of the court at Salem.

"Boston, Oct. 11, 1692.

"WILLIAM STOUGHTON, "SAMUEL SEWALL."

Manifestation of one class of phenomena presented at those trials has not been noticed in the preceding pages; viz., the appearance of the spirits of particular departed ones to many of the accusing girls. It is obviously true that those clairvoyants were very much oftener beholders of the spirits of those still dwelling in mortal forms than of those who had escaped from thralldom to the flesh. Still there were then some cases in which the spirits of some who had been known in that vicinity, and whose bodies were moldering beneath its soil, were both seen and heard. Among others, two former wives of Burroughs were named. Mather says (p. 282), "Several of the bewitched had given in their testimony that they had been troubled with the apparitions of two women, who said they were G. B.'s two wives; and that he had been the death of them.... Now, G. B. had been infamous for the barbarous usage of his two successive wives, all the country over. (p. 286.) ... 'Twas testified, that, keeping his two successive wives in _a strange kind of slavery_, he would, when he came home from abroad, pretend to tell the talk which any had with them; that he has brought them to the point of death by his harsh dealings with his wives, and then made people promise that, in case death should happen, they would say nothing of it; that he used all means to make his wives write, sign, seal, and swear to a covenant _never to reveal any of his secrets_; that his wives had privately complained unto the neighbors about _frightly apparitions_ of evil spirits, with which their house was sometimes infested," &c.

Some of these allegations probably rested on firmer bases of facts than have generally been perceived. Though we regard Burroughs as having been one of the kindest and best of men, we do not entirely withhold credence from the general import of such allegations regarding him. They point both to extraordinary unfoldments within him, and to probable handlings and control of his outer form at times by some intelligence not his own. "_Strange kind of slavery_" would naturally result, in those days, from a husband's telling his wife, on returning to his home, what conversation she had held with others during his absence, _if his statements were true_; but if not true, the wife would only laugh at his pretensions, and make no complaints to neighbors. If both true and oft repeated, such mysterious utterances might well enslave, worry, and bring close to death's door a sensitive wife; and the husband, however affectionate and kind, may at times have been as powerless to shape his course of procedure as is the dried leaf when whirled onward by strong autumnal breezes. Acts not his own the world would hold him responsible for; and no wonder that, in his age, a spiritualistically unfolded, an illumined man, and one also whose form might be moved, as was that of Agassiz, by will not his own, should strive in all possible ways to prevent wives, and any other people who knew them, from revealing any of his peculiar and marvelous _secrets_; no wonder that he sought to make his wives "write, sign, seal, and swear" never to do it; because the noising abroad of such powers as he possessed, and such performances as were attendant upon him, if publicly known, would be profaned, would destroy his usefulness, and endanger, if not take, his life. Thanks that, in our day, danger of a hangman's rope does not threaten one because of his high spiritual illumination.

George Burroughs was graduated at Harvard College in 1670; had been a preacher for many years prior to 1692, and, during some of them, ministered to the people at Salem Village. But before the outburst of witchcraft there, he had found a home far off to the north-east, on the shores of Casco Bay, in the Province of Maine, where he was then humbly and quietly laboring in his profession, but not in impenetrable seclusion. Clairvoyants are masters of both seclusion and space to a marvelous extent. Throughout a region far, far around, wherever the special light pertaining to the mediumistic or illuminated condition revealed its possessor and put forth its attractions, there the opened inner vision of the accusing girls might make them practically present. Emanations from one residing at Falmouth or at Wells might readily meet and blend with those from sensitives at their home in Salem. Thought flies fast and far. With equal speed, and quite as far, can the unswathed inner perceptives of an entranced or illumined mortal be attracted. Old memories and undissolved psychological attachments may have operated in this case. One of the accusing girls had lived for a time in the family of Burroughs while he resided at the Village. Chains of association are never broken and rendered forever unusable, though they often become exceedingly attenuated, and cease to retain recognition in our ordinary conditions. Several of the accusing girls alleged that Burroughs was one, and a leading and authoritative one, in the band of apparitional beings from whom their torments came. He was "cried out upon," arrested, tried, condemned, and executed.

The opinions of different writers as to the real character and worth of this man have been very diverse. While some have accounted him an hypocritical wizard, others have deemed him a man of beautiful and beneficent life. Mather regarded him with aversion, and says, "Glad should I have been if I had never known the name of this man." Afterward the same author charged Burroughs with "tergiversations, contradictions, and falsehoods." Sullivan, in his History of Maine, says, that "he was a man of bad character, and of a cruel disposition." Hutchinson asserted, on insufficient grounds, that when under examination, "he was confounded, and used many twistings and turnings." But Fowler says, "All the weight of character enlisted against him fails to counteract the favorable impression made by his Christian conduct during his imprisonment, and at the time of his execution." Calef says, that, the day before execution, Margaret Jacobs, who had testified against him, came to the prisoner, acknowledging that she had belied him, and asking his forgiveness; "who not only forgave her, but also _prayed with and for her_." The same adducer of "_Facts_" states that, "when 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 some that the spectators would hinder the execution. _The accusers said the black man stood and dictated to him._ As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Cotton Mather, being mounted upon a horse, addressed himself to the people, partly to declare that he (Burroughs) was no ordained minister, and partly to possess the people of his guilt, saying that the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light; and this somewhat appeased the people, and the executions went on." His prayers, and his whole deportment and spirit during these last trying scenes, indicate his possession of a calm, strong soul, which bore him, on the wings of innocence and piety, into a region of serenity which his traducers and murderers were unfited to enter and knew not of. The brief account which Upham's researches enabled him to furnish of this man's life prior to the witchcraft mania presents still further evidences of his sterling worth. That author says, "Papers on file in the State House prove that in the District of Maine, where he lived and preached before and after his settlement at the Village, he was regarded with confidence by his neighbors, and looked up to as a friend and counselor.... He was self-denying, generous, and public-spirited, laboring in humility and with zeal in the midst of great privations." Land had been granted to him, and when the town asked him to exchange a part of it for other lands, "he freely gave it back, not desiring any land anywhere else, nor anything else in consideration thereof."

Scanning Burroughs as well as accessible knowledge of him now permits, we judge that he was a quiet, peaceful, persistent laborer for the good of his fellow-men,--a humble, trustful, sincere servant of God,--a rare embodiment of the prevailing perceptions, sentiments, virtues, and graces which haloed the form of the Nazarene.

Why did the people of his time take his life? What were the accusations against him? In addition to the testimony that he was felt by many of the girls as a tormenting specter, he was accused of putting forth superhuman physical strength. Cotton Mather says,--

"He was a very puny man, yet he had often done things beyond the strength of a giant. A gun of about seven feet barrel, and so heavy that strong men could not steadily hold it out with both hands, there were several testimonies given in by persons of credit and honor, that he made nothing of taking up such a gun behind the lock with one hand, and holding it out like a pistol, at arm's end. In his vindication he was _foolish enough to say that an Indian was there, and held it out at the same time_; whereas, none of the spectators ever saw any such Indian; but they _supposed_ the black man (as the witches call the devil, and they generally say he resembles an Indian) might have given him that assistance."

That paragraph is very instructive. All subsequent historians, beginning back with Calef, have mentioned, what is no doubt true, that Burroughs was a small man, and yet was constitutionally very strong--was remarkable for physical powers even in his college days; and they have fancied that on that ground they have satisfactorily accounted for his marvelous exploits; they seemingly overlook the fact that it was Burroughs himself, and not other people, who said that "an Indian," invisible to others, stood by and held the gun out. Historians have explained the good and true man's seeming physical feats at the expense of his _veracity_. Heaven help the innocent when in the hands of such traducing commentators. The question is not what Burroughs could have done unaided, but it is whether _he told truth_ when he said an Indian helped him. His whole character and life argue that he would not have spoken as he is alleged to have done, unless he had been conscious of the presence of an Indian within or by himself, putting forth, in part at least, the strength which raised and supported that heavy gun. He said that such was the fact. What though all spectators failed to see the Indian? It was a disembodied Indian--a spirit Indian--and therefore necessarily invisible by external eyes. The non-perception of him by other men standing by is no evidence that the spirit Indian was not there; for spiritual beings are discernible by the inner or spirit optics alone, and not by the outer; so taught Paul.

The fact that bystanders supposed the devil helped Burroughs, or performed the lifting feat through him, implies that they, as well as he, believed that something more was done than mere human strength accomplished. In the present day, when spirits are very often putting forth strength through forms of flesh which executes performances quite as marvelous as any which were alleged to have been enacted through Burroughs, his assertion that a foreign, hidden intelligence worked within and through his form, conjoined with the belief of beholders that some spiritual being was operating therein, any array of facts now, proving, even to perfect demonstration, that the little man was enormously strong, though it may indicate that he did not require foreign aid to lift and hold out the gun, does nothing toward impeaching his own veracity when he said he had help. Surely one _can_ have help in the performance of what he could do alone. If any man says he had help in a particular case, his ability to have performed the special feat alone affords no indication that his statement is untrue; and yet the spirit of witchcraft history implies that it does.

Prove Burroughs to have been constitutionally as strong as the strongest mortal that ever lived,--yes, as strong as the strongest of all created beings,--ay, as strong as the Omnipotent One himself, and even then you have done nothing which shows or tends to show that another intelligent worker may not have co-operated with him in the performance of marvelous feats. We say again that the question raised by his statement is not whether he, in and of himself, was competent to his seeming feats, but it is whether an Indian spirit did or did not help him. Burroughs says he had help from such a one. Bystanders supposed that the devil helped him; but he who sensed the helper's presence called him an Indian; and he was a much more trustworthy testifier as to that helper's proper classification in the scale of being, than a combined world of men devoid of spirit-vision, putting forth only their inferences regarding an unseen personage. Imputation of this man's liftings to his constitutional strength solely is an imputation of false testimony to the truthful man himself, and historic arguments, if valid, make him a liar.