April, impressive scenes had been exhibited at Salem
Village. Some of the most conspicuous cases of the preliminary
examinations of persons arrested had occurred. The necessary steps were
then being taken to follow up those examinations with a procedure that
would excite the country to the highest pitch. The arrangements, kept
concealed at Salem, and unsuspected by the public at large, were made
and perfected in Boston. On the day after the date of the foregoing
memorandum, a Magistrate in that place issued the proper order for the
arrest of the Rev. George Burroughs; and officers were started express
to Maine for that purpose. This was "the most prodigious aspect of
affairs" at the time. All the circumstances must have been known by
Mather. Hence his earnest solicitude that proceedings should be
conducted under his own "direction and protection." The use of these
terms, looks as if Mather contemplated the preliminary examinations as
to take place under his direction and management, and will be borne in
mind, when we come to consider the question of his having been, more or
less, present at them.

Disposed to take the most favorable and charitable view of such passages
as have now been presented, I would gather from them that his mind may
have recurred to his original and favorite idea, that prayer and fasting
were the proper weapons to wield against witchcraft; but if they failed,
then recourse was to be had to the terrors of the law. He desired to
have the afflicted and the accused placed under the treatment of some
one person, of discretion enough to make no ill use of their
communications, to whom "they might privately tell their minds," and
who, without "noise, company and openness," could keep, under his own
control, the dread secrets of the former and exorcise the latter. He was
willing, and desirous, of occupying this position himself, and of taking
its responsibility. To signify this, he offered to provide "meat, drink,
and lodging" for six of the afflicted children; to keep them "asunder in
the closest privacy;" to be the recipient of their visions; and then to
look after the accused, for the purpose of inducing them to confess and
break loose from their league with Satan; to be exempt, except when he
thought proper to do it, from giving testimony in Court, against parties
accused; and to communicate with persons, thus secretly complained of,
as he and his father afterwards did with the Secretary of Connecticu