Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...he would have convicted the Prisoner. It is quite doubtful, however, whether the above testimony of Evans was given in, at the trial; for the next clause, in the same paragraph, is Sarah Wilson's confession, that: "The night before Mr. Burroughs was executed, there was a great meeting of the witches, nigh Sargeant Chandlers, that Mr. Burroughs was there, and they had the sacrament, and after they had done, he took leave, and bid them stand to their faith, and not own any thing. Martha Tyler saith the same with Sarah Wilson, and several others." The testimony of these two confessing witches, "and several others," relating, as it did, to what was alleged to have happened "the night before Mr. Burroughs was executed," could not have been given at his trial, nor until after his death. Yet, as but three other confessing witches are mentioned in the files of this case, Mather must have relied upon this Memorandum to make up the "eight" said, by him, to have testified, "in the prosecution of the charge" against Burroughs. Hale, misled, perhaps, by the Memorandum, uses the indefinite expression "seven or eight." We know that one of the confessing witches, who had given evidence against Burroughs, retracted it before the Court, previous to his execution; but Mather makes no mention of that fact. To go back to the barrel Mr. Burroughs lifted. I have stated the substance of the whole testimony relating to the point. Mather characterizes it, thus, in his report of the trial: "There was evidence likewise brought in, that he made nothing of taking up whole barrels, filled with molasses or cider, in very disadvantageous positions, and carrying them off, through the most difficult places, out of a canoe to the shore." He made up this statement, as its substance and phraseology show, from Willard's deposition, then lying before him. In his use of that part of the evidence, in particular, as of the whole evidence, generally, the reader can judge whether he exhibited...