ther stated, "there being no
judicatures or Courts of Justice yet established," that, therefore, such
an extraordinary step was necessary. It is, indeed, remarkable, that, in
the face of their own recorded convictions of expediency and propriety,
and in disregard of the provisions of the Charter which, a few days
before, they had been sworn to obey, the Council could have been led to
so far "take counsel of passion," as to rush over every barrier to this
precipitate measure.

No specific reference is anywhere made, in the Journals, to Witchcraft;
but the Court was to act upon all cases of felony and other crimes. The
"Council Records" were not obtained from England, until 1846. Writers
have generally spoken of the Court as consisting of seven Judges.
Saltonstall's resignation does not appear to have led to a new
appointment; and, perhaps, Hathorne, who generally acted as an Examining
Magistrate, and signed most of the Commitments of the prisoners, did not
often, if ever, sit as a Judge. In this way, the Court may have been
reduced to seven. Stephen Sewall was appointed Clerk, and George Corwin,
High Sheriff.

Thus established and organized, on the twenty-seventh of May, the Court
sat, on the second of June, for the trial of Bridget Bishop. Her
Death-warrant was signed, on the eighth of June, the very day the
Legislature convened; and she was executed on the tenth. This was,
indeed, "precipitancy." Before the General Court had time, possibly, to
make "an establishment of Courts of Justice" in the exercise of the
powers bestowed upon it by the Charter, this Special Court--suddenly
sprung upon the country, against the deliberate first judgment of the
Council itself, and not called for by any emergency of the moment which
the General Court, just coming on the stage, could not legally,
constitutionally, and adequately, have met--dipped its hands in blood;
and an infatuated and appalled people and their representatives allowed
the wheels of the Juggernaut to roll on.

The question, who are responsible for the creation, in such hot haste,
of this Court, and for its instant entrance upon its ruthless work, may
not be fully and specifically answered, with absolute demonstration, but
we may approach a satisfactory solution of it. We know that a word from
either of the Mathers would have stopped it. Their relations to the
Government were, then, controlling. Further, if, at that time, either of
the other leading Ministers--Willa