onorable Judges to meddle with. In short, I do humbly but freely
affirm it, there is not a man living in this world who has been more
desirous, than the poor man I, to shelter my neighbors from the
inconveniences of spectral outcries; yea, I am very jealous I have done
so much that way, as to sin in what I have done; such have been the
cowardice and fearfulness where unto my regard to the dissatisfaction of
other people has precipitated me. I know a man in the world, who has
thought he has been able to convict some such witches as ought to die;
but his respect unto the public peace has caused him rather to try
whether he could not renew them by repentance."--_Calef_, 11.

The careful reader will notice that "six of the afflicted," at Salem
Village, would have included nearly the whole circle of the accusing
girls there. If he had been allowed to take them into his exclusive
keeping, he would have had the whole thing in his own hands.

In his account of "the afflictions of Margaret Rule," printed by Calef,
in his book, and from which the foregoing extracts have been made
speaking of the "eight cursed spectres" with which she was assaulted, in
the fall of 1693, Mather says: "She was very careful of my reiterated
charges, _to forbear blazing their names_, lest any good person should
come to suffer any blast of reputation, through the cunning malice of
the great accuser; nevertheless, having since privately named them to
myself, I will venture to say this of them, that they are a sort of
wretches who, for these many years, have gone under as violent
presumptions of witchcraft as, perhaps, any creatures yet living upon
earth; although I am far from thinking that the visions of this young
woman were evidence enough to prove them so."--_Calef_, 4.

The following is from his _Wonders of the Invisible World_, 12: "If once
a witch do ingeniously confess among us, no more spectres do, in their
shapes, after this, trouble the vicinage; if any guilty creatures will
accordingly, to so good purpose, confess their crime to any Minister of
God, and get out of the snare of the Devil, as no Minister will discover
such a conscientious confession, so, I believe, none in the authority
will press him to discover it, but rejoice in a soul saved from death."

In his _Life of Phips_, he says: "In fine, the country was in a dreadful
ferment, and wise men foresaw a long train of dismal and bloody
consequences. Hereupon they first advised, that t