dges,
Justices, and other officers of the Council and Courts of Justice within
this their Majesties' Province belonging, and that notice thereof, or
summons, be forthwith issued unto the members of the Council now
absent."

The following letter from Sir William Phips, to the Government at home,
recently procured from England by Mr. Goodell, was published in the last
volume of the _Collections of the Essex Institute_--Volume IX., Part II.
I print it, entire, and request the reader to examine it, carefully, and
to refer to it as occasion arises in this discussion, as it is a key to
the whole transaction of the Witchcraft trials. Its opening sentence
demonstrates the impression made by those who first met and surrounded
him, on his excitable nature:

"When I first arrived, I found this Province miserably harassed with
a most horrible witchcraft or possession of devils, which had broke
in upon several towns, some scores of poor people were taken with
preternatural torments, some scalded with brimstone, some had pins
stuck in their flesh, others hurried into the fire and water, and
some dragged out of their houses and carried over the tops of trees
and hills for many miles together; it hath been represented to me
much like that of Sweden about thirty years ago; and there were many
committed to prison upon suspicion of Witchcraft before my arrival.
The loud cries and clamours of the friends of the afflicted people,
with the advice of the Deputy-governor and many others, prevailed
with me to give a Commission of Oyer and Terminer for discovering
what Witchcraft might be at the bottom, or whether it were not a
possession. The chief Judge in this Commission was the
Deputy-governor, and the rest were persons of the best prudence and
figure that could then be pitched upon. When the Court came to sit
at Salem, in the County of Essex, they convicted more than twenty
persons being guilty of witchcraft, some of the convicted confessed
their guilt; the Court, as I understand, began their proceedings
with the accusations of afflicted persons; and then went upon other
humane evidences to strengthen that. I was, almost the whole time of
the proceeding, abroad in the service of their Majesties, in the
Eastern part of the country, and depended upon the judgment of the
Court, as to a method of proceeding in cases of witchcraft; but when
I ca