s needs to be
elucidated.

In his _Life of Sir William Phips_, Cotton Mather has this paragraph:
"And Sir William Phips arriving to his Government, after this ensnaring
horrible storm was begun, did consult the neighboring Ministers of the
Province, who made unto his Excellency and the Council, a Return (drawn
up, at their desire, by Mr. Mather, the younger, as I have been
informed) wherein they declared."--_Magnalia_, Book II., page 63.

He then gives, without intimating that any essential or substantial part
of the _declaration_, or _Advice_, was withheld, the Sections _not_
included in brackets.--_Vide_, pages 21, 22, _ante_.

It is to be observed that Phips is represented as having asked the
Ministers for their advice, and their answer as having been made to his
"Excellency and the Council." There is no mention of this transaction in
the Records of the Council. Phips makes no reference to it in his letter
of the fourteenth of October, which is remarkable, as it would have been
to his purpose, in explaining the grounds of his procedure, in
organizing, and putting into operation, the judicial tribunal at Salem.
It may be concluded, from all that I shall present,--Sir William, having
given over the whole business to his Deputy and Chief-justice, with an
understanding that he was authorized to manage it, in all
particulars,--that this transaction with the Ministers may never have
been brought to the notice of the Governor at all: his official
character and title were, perhaps, referred to, as a matter of form. The
Council, as such, had nothing to do with it; but the Deputy-governor and
certain individual members of the Council, that is, those who, with him,
as Chief-justice, constituted the Special Court, asked and received the
_Advice_.

Again: the paragraph, as constructed by Mather, just quoted, certainly
leaves the impression on a reader, that Phips applied for the _Advice of
the Ministers_, at or soon after his arrival. The evidence, I think, is
conclusive, that the _Advice_ was not asked, until after the first
Session of the Court had been held. This is inferrible from the answer
of the Ministers, which is dated thirteen days after the first trial,
and five days after the execution of a sentence then passed. It alludes
to the _success_ which had been given to the prosecutions. If the
Government had asked counsel of the Ministers before the trials
commenced, it is inexplicable and incredible, besides being inex