is
necessary to notice before closing, in order to prevent wrong
impressions being made by his article, touching the truth of history.

A pamphlet, entitled, _Some Miscellany Observations on our present
debates respecting Witchcraft, in a Dialogue between S and B_, has been
referred to. It was published in Philadelphia, in 1692. Its printing was
procured by Hezekiah Usher, a leading citizen of Boston, who, at the
later stages of the prosecution, had been cried out upon, by the
accusing girls, and put under arrest. Its author was understood to be
the Rev. Samuel Willard. The Reviewer claims for its writer precedence
over the Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich, and Robert Pike, of Salisbury, as
having earlier opposed the proceedings. Wise headed a Memorial, in favor
of John Proctor and against the use of spectral evidence, before the
trials that took place on the fifth of August; and Pike's second letter
to Judge Corwin was dated the eighth of August.

The pamphlet attributed to Willard is a spirited and able performance;
but seems to allow the use of spectral evidence, when bearing against
persons of "ill-fame."

Pike concedes all that believers in the general doctrines of witchcraft
demanded, particularly the ground taken in the pamphlet attributed to
Willard, and then proceeds, by the most acute technical logic, based
upon solid common sense, to overturn all the conclusions to which the
Court had been led. It was sent, by special messenger, to a Judge on the
Bench, who was also an associate with Pike at the Council Board of the
Province. Wise's paper was addressed to the Court of Assistants, the
Supreme tribunal of the Province. The _Miscellany Observations_, appear
to have been written after the trials. There is nothing, however,
absolutely to determine the precise date; and they were published
anonymously, in Philadelphia. The right of Wise and Pike to the credit
of having first, by written remonstrance, opposed the proceedings, on
the spot, cannot, I think, be taken away.

The Reviewer charges me, in reference to one point, with not having
thought it necessary to "pore over musty manuscripts, in the obscure
chirography of two centuries ago." So far as my proper subject could be
elucidated by it, I am constrained to claim, that this labor was
encountered, to an extent not often attempted. The files of Courts, and
State, County, Town, and Church records, were very extensively and
thoroughly studied out. So far as the Cou