rd, or Allen--had demanded delay, it
would have been necessary to pause; but none appear to have made open
opposition; and all must share in the responsibility for subsequent
events.

Phips says that the affair at Salem Village was represented to him as
"much like that of Sweden, about thirty years ago." This Swedish case
was Cotton Mather's special topic. In his _Wonders of the Invisible
World_, he says that "other good people have in this way been harassed,
but none in circumstances more like to ours, than the people of God in
Sweedland." He introduces, into the _Wonders_, a separate account of it;
and reproduces it in his _Life of Phips_, incorporated subsequently into
the _Magnalia_. The first point he makes, in presenting this case, is as
follows: "The inhabitants had earnestly sought God in prayer, and yet
their affliction continued. Whereupon Judges had a Special Commission to
find, and root out the hellish crew; and the rather, because another
County in the Kingdom, which had been so molested, was delivered upon
the execution of the Witches."--_The Wonders of the Invisible World._
Edit. London, 1693, p. 48.

The importance attached by Cotton Mather to the affair in Sweden,
especially viewed in connection with the foregoing extract, indicates
that the change, I have conjectured, had come over him, as to the way to
deal with Witches; and that he had reached the conclusion that prayer
would not, and nothing but the gallows could, answer the emergency. In
the Swedish case, was found the precedent for a "Special Commission of
Oyer and Terminer."

Well might the Governor have felt the importance of relieving himself,
as far as possible, from the responsibility of having organized such a
Court, and of throwing it upon his advisers. The tribunal consisted of
the Deputy-governor, as Chief-justice, and eight other persons, all
members of the Council, and each, as has been shown, owing his seat, at
that Board, to the Mathers.

The recent publication of this letter of Governor Phips enables us now
to explain certain circumstances, before hardly intelligible, and to
appreciate the extent of the outrages committed by those who controlled
the administration of the Province, during the Witchcraft trials.

In 1767, Andrew Oliver, then Secretary of the Province, was directed to
search the Records of the Government to ascertain precedents, touching a
point of much interest at that time. From his Report, part of which is
give