raft and Evil Spirits
personating Men,' an undertaking prompted by an unforeseen and
disagreeable circumstance. The wife of a minister, one of the
most active promoters of the prosecution, was involved in the
indiscriminate charges of the informers, who were beginning to
aim at more exalted prey. The minister, alarmed at the unexpected
result of his own agitation, was now convinced of the falseness
of the whole proceeding. It was a fortunate occurrence. From that
time the executions ceased.[159]

[159] If, however, individuals of the human species were at
length exempt from the penalty of death, those of the canine
species were sacrificed, perhaps vicariously. Two dogs,
convicted, as it is reported, of being accessories, were
solemnly hanged!

The dangerously increasing class of informers who, like the
'delatores' of the early Roman Empire, made a lucrative
profession by their baseness, and spared not even reluctant or
recusant magistrates themselves, more than anything else, was the
cause of the termination of the trials. If they would preserve
their own lives, or at least their reputations, the authorities
and judges found it was necessary at once to check the progress
of the infection. About one hundred and fifty witches or wizards
were still under arrest (two hundred more being about to be
arrested), when Governor Phipps having been recalled by the Home
Government, was induced by a feeling of interest or justice to
release the prisoners, to the wonder and horror of the people.
From this period a reaction commenced. Those who four years
before originated the trials suddenly became objects of hatred or
contempt. Even the clergy, who had taken a leading part in them,
became unpopular. In spite of the strenuous attempts of Dr.
Cotton Mather and his disciples to revive the agitation, the tide
of public opinion or feeling had set the other way, and people
began to acknowledge the insufficiency of the evidence and the
possible innocence of the condemned. Public fasts and prayers
were decreed throughout the colony. Judges and juries emulated
one another in admitting a misgiving 'that we were sadly deluded
and mistaken.' Dr. Mather was less fickle and less repentant. In
one of his treatises on the subject, recounting some of the
signs and proofs of the actual crime, he declares: 'Nor are these
the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out among the
inhabitants of New England. _Fleshy_ people may burlesque thes