Salem Witchcraft Part 44

The princ.i.p.al difference in the methods by which communications were believed to be made between mortals and spiritual beings, at the time of the witchcraft delusion and now, is this. Then it was chiefly by the medium of the eye, but at present by the ear. The "afflicted children" professed to have seen and conversed with the ghosts of George Burroughs's former wives and of others. They also professed to have seen the shapes or appearances of living persons in a disembodied form, or in the likeness of some animal or creature. Now it is affirmed by those calling themselves Spiritualists, that, by certain rappings or other incantations, they can summon into immediate but invisible presence the spirits of the departed, hold conferences with them, and draw from them information not derivable from any sources of human knowledge. There is no essential distinction between the old and the new belief and practice. The consequences that resulted from the former would be likely to result from the latter, if it should obtain universal or general credence, be allowed to mix with judicial proceedings, or to any extent affect the rights of person, property, or character.

The "afflicted children" at Salem Village had, by long practice, become wonderful adepts in the art of jugglery, and probably of ventriloquism. They did many extraordinary things, and were believed to have constant communications with ghosts and spectres; but they did not attain to spiritual rapping. If they had possessed that power, the credulity of judges, ministers, magistrates, and people, would have been utterly overwhelmed, and no limit could have been put to the destruction they might have wrought.

If there was any thing supernatural in the witchcraft of 1692, if any other than human spirits were concerned at all, one thing is beyond a doubt: they were shockingly wicked spirits, and led those who dealt with them to the utmost delusion, crime, and perdition; and this example teaches all who seek to consult with spirits, through a medium or in any other way, to be very strict to require beforehand the most satisfactory and conclusive evidence of good character before they put themselves into communication with them. Spirits who are said to converse with people, in these modern ages, cannot be considered as having much claim to a good repute. No valuable discovery of truth, no important guidance in human conduct, no useful instruction, has ever been conveyed to mankind through them; and much mischief perhaps may have resulted from confiding in them. It is not wise to place our minds under the influence of any of our fellow-creatures, in the ordinary guise of humanity, unless we know something about them ent.i.tling them to our acquaintance; much less so, to take them into our intimacy or confidence. Spirits cannot be put under oath, or their credibility be subjected to tests. Whether they are spirits of truth or falsehood cannot be known; and common caution would seem to dictate an avoidance of their company. The fields of knowledge opened to us in the works of mortal men; the stores of human learning and science; the pages of history, sacred or profane; the records of revelation; and the instructions and conversation of the wise and good of our fellow-creatures, while in the body,--are wide enough for our exploration, and may well occupy the longest lifetime.

In its general outlines and minuter details, Salem Witchcraft is an ill.u.s.tration of the fatal effects of allowing the imagination inflamed by pa.s.sion to take the place of common sense, and of pus.h.i.+ng the curiosity and credence of the human mind, in this stage of our being, while in these corporeal embodiments, beyond the boundaries that ought to limit their exercise. If we disregard those boundaries, and try to overleap them, we shall be liable to the same results. The lesson needs to be impressed equally upon all generations and ages of the world's future history. Essays have been written and books published to prove that the sense of the miraculous is destined to decline as mankind becomes more enlightened, and ascribing a greater or less tendency to the indulgence of this sense to particular periods of the church, or systems of belief, or schools of what is called philosophy.

It is maintained that it was more prevalent in the mediaeval ages than in modern times. Some a.s.sert that it has had a greater development in Catholic than Protestant countries; and some, perhaps, insist upon the reverse. Some attempt to show that it has manifested itself more remarkably among Puritans than in other cla.s.ses of Protestant Christians. The last and most pretentious form of this dogma is, that the sense of the miraculous fades away in the progress of what arrogates to itself the name of Rationalism. This is one of the delusive results of introducing generalization into historical disquisitions. History deals with man. Man is always the same. The race consists, not of an aggregation, but of individuals, in all ages, never moulded or melted into cla.s.ses. Each individual has ever retained his distinctness from every other. There has been the same infinite variety in every period, in every race, in every nation.

Society, philosophy, custom, can no more obliterate these varieties than they can bring the countenances and features of men into uniformity. Diversity everywhere alike prevails. The particular forms and shapes in which the sense of the miraculous may express itself have pa.s.sed and will pa.s.s away in the progress of civilization. But the sense itself remains; just as particular costumes and fas.h.i.+ons of garment pa.s.s away, while the human form, its front erect and its vision towards the heavens, remains. The sense of the miraculous remains with Protestants as much as with Catholics, with Churchmen as much as with Puritans, with those who reject all creeds, equally with those whose creeds are the longest and the oldest. In our day, it must have been generally noticed, that the wonders of what imagines itself to be Spiritualism are rather more accredited by persons who aspire to the character of rationalists than by those who hold on tenaciously to the old landmarks of Orthodoxy.

The truth is, that the sense of the miraculous has not declined, and never can. It will grow deeper and stronger with the progress of true intelligence. As long as man thinks, he will feel that he is himself a perpetual miracle. The more he thinks, the more will he feel it. The mind which can wander into the deepest depths of the starry heavens, and feel itself to be there; which, pondering over the printed page, lives in the most distant past, communes with sages of h.o.a.r antiquity, with prophets and apostles, joins the disciples as they walk with the risen Lord to Emmaus, or mingles in the throng that listen to Paul at Mars' Hill,--knows itself to be beyond the power of s.p.a.ce or time, and greater than material things. It knows not what it shall be; but it feels that it is something above the present and visible. It realizes the spiritual world, and will do so more and more, the higher its culture, the greater its freedom, and the wider its view of the material nature by which it is environed, while in this transitory stage of its history.

The lesson of our story will be found not to discard spiritual things, but to teach us, while in the flesh, not to attempt to break through present limitations, not to seek to know more than has been made known of the unseen and invisible, but to keep the inquiries of our minds and the action of society within the bounds of knowledge now attainable, and extend our curious researches and speculations only as far as we can here have solid ground to stand upon.

To explain the superst.i.tious opinions that took effect in the witchcraft delusion, it is necessary to consider the state of biblical criticism at that period. That department of theological learning was then in a very immature condition.

The authority of Scripture, as it appeared on the face of the standard version, seemed to require them to pursue the course they adopted; and those enlarged and just principles of interpretation which we are taught by the learned of all denominations at the present day to apply to the Sacred Writings had not then been brought to the view of the people or received by the clergy.

It was gravely argued, for instance, that there was nothing improbable in the idea that witches had the power, in virtue of their compact with the Devil, of riding aloft through the air, because it is recorded, in the history of our Lord's temptation, that Satan transported him in a similar manner to the pinnacle of the temple, and to the summit of an exceedingly high mountain. And Cotton Mather declares, that, to his apprehension, the disclosures of the wonderful operations of the Devil, upon and through his subjects, that were made in the course of the witchcraft prosecutions, had shed a marvellous light upon the Scriptures! What a perversion of the Sacred Writings to employ them for the purpose of sanctioning the extravagant and delirious reveries of the human imagination! What a miserable delusion, to suppose that the Word of G.o.d could receive illumination from the most absurd and horrible superst.i.tion that ever brooded in darkness over the mind of man!

One of the sources of the delusion of 1692 was ignorance of many natural laws that have been revealed by modern science. A vast amount of knowledge on these subjects has been attained since that time. In our halls of education, in a.s.sociations for the diffusion of knowledge, and in a diversified and all-pervading popular literature, what was dark and impenetrable mystery then has been explained, accounted for, and brought within the grasp of all minds. The contemplation of the evils brought upon our predecessors by their ignorance of the laws of nature cannot but lead us to appreciate more highly our opportunities to get knowledge in this department. As we advance into the interior of the physical system to which we belong; are led in succession from one revelation of beauty and grandeur to another, and the field of light and truth displaces that of darkness and mystery; while the fearful images that disturbed the faith and bewildered the thoughts of our fathers are dissolving and vanis.h.i.+ng, the whole host of spirits, ghosts, and demons disappearing, and the presence and providence of G.o.d alone found to fill all scenes and cause all effects,--our hearts ought to rise to him in loftier adoration and holier devotion. If, while we enjoy a fuller revelation of his infinite and all-glorious operations and designs than our fathers did, the sentiment of piety which glowed in their hearts like a coal from the altar of G.o.d has been permitted to grow dim in ours, no reproach their errors and faults can possibly authorize will equal that which will justly fall upon us.

Another cause of their delusion was too great a dependence upon the imagination. We shall find no lesson more clearly taught by history, by experience, or by observation, than this, that man is never safe while either his fancy or his feeling is the guiding principle of his nature. There is a strong and constant attraction between his imagination and his pa.s.sions; and, if either is permitted to exercise unlimited sway, the other will most certainly be drawn into co-operation with it, and, when they are allowed to act without restraint upon each other and with each other, they lead to the derangement and convulsion of his whole system. They const.i.tute the combustible elements of our being: one serves as the spark to explode the other. Reason, enlightened by revelation and guided by conscience, is the great conservative principle: while that exercises the sovereign power over the fancy and the pa.s.sions, we are safe; if it is dethroned, no limit can be a.s.signed to the ruin that may follow. In the scenes we have now been called to witness, we have perceived to what lengths of folly, cruelty, and crime even good men have been carried, who relinquished the aid, rejected the counsels, and abandoned the guidance of their reason.

Another influence that operated to produce the catastrophe in 1692 was the power of contagious sympathy. Every wise man and good citizen ought to be aware of the existence and operation of this power. There seems indeed to be a const.i.tutional, original, sympathy in our nature.

When men act in a crowd, their heartstrings are p.r.o.ne to vibrate in unison. Whatever chord of pa.s.sion is struck in one breast, the same will ring forth its wild note through the whole ma.s.s. This principle shows itself particularly in seasons of excitement, and its power rises in proportion to the ardor and zeal of those upon whom it acts.

It is for every one who desires to be preserved from the excesses of popular feeling, and to prevent the community to which he belongs from plunging into riotous and blind commotions, to keep his own judgment and emotions as free as possible from a power that seizes all it can reach, draws them into its current, and sweeps them round and round like the Maelstrom, until they are overwhelmed and buried in its devouring vortex. When others are heated, the only wisdom is to determine to keep cool; whenever a people or an individual is rus.h.i.+ng headlong, it is the duty of patriotism and of friends.h.i.+p to check the motion.

In this connection it may be remarked--and I should be sorry to bring the subject to a close without urging the thought upon your attention--that the mere power of sympathy, the momentum with which men act in a crowd, is itself capable of convulsing society and overthrowing all its safeguards, without the aid or supposed agency of supernatural beings. The early history of the colony of New York presents a case in point.

In 1741, just half a century after the witchcraft prosecutions in Ma.s.sachusetts, the city of New York, then containing about nine thousand inhabitants, witnessed a scene quite rivalling, in horror and folly, that presented here. Some one started the idea, that a conspiracy was on foot, among the colored portion of the inhabitants, to murder the whites. The story was pa.s.sed from one to another.

Although subsequently ascertained to have been utterly without foundation, no one stopped to inquire into its truth, or had the wisdom or courage to discountenance its circulation. Soon a universal panic, like a conflagration, spread through the whole community; and the results were most frightful. More than one hundred persons were cast into prison. Four white persons and eighteen negroes were hanged.

Eleven negroes were burned at the stake, and fifty were transported into slavery. As in the witchcraft prosecutions, a clergyman was among the victims, and perished on the gallows.

The "New-York Negro Plot," as it was called, was indeed marked by all the features of absurdity in the delusion, ferocity in the popular excitement, and destruction along the path of its progress, which belonged to the witchcraft proceedings here, and shows that any people, given over to the power of contagious pa.s.sion, may be swept by desolation, and plunged into ruin.

One of the practical lessons inculcated by the history that has now been related is, that no duty is more certain, none more important, than a free and fearless expression of opinion, by all persons, on all occasions. No wise or philosophic person would think of complaining of the diversities of sentiment it is likely to develop. Such diversities are the vital principle of free communities, and the only elements of popular intelligence. If the right to utter them is a.s.serted by all and for all, tolerance is secured, and no inconvenience results. It is probable that there were many persons here in 1692 who doubted the propriety of the proceedings at their commencement, but who were afterwards prevailed upon to fall into the current and swell the tide.

If they had all discharged their duty to their country and their consciences by freely and boldly uttering their disapprobation and declaring their dissent, who can tell but that the whole tragedy might have been prevented? and, if it might, the blood of the innocent may be said, in one sense, to be upon their heads.

The leading features and most striking aspects of the witchcraft delusion have been repeated in places where witches and the interference of supernatural beings are never thought of: whenever a community gives way to its pa.s.sions, and spurns the admonitions and casts off the restraints of reason, there is a delusion that can hardly be described in any other phrase. We cannot glance our eye over the face of our country without beholding such scenes: and, so long as they are exhibited; so long as we permit ourselves to invest objects of little or no real importance with such an inordinate imaginary interest that we are ready to go to every extremity rather than relinquish them; so long as we yield to the impulse of pa.s.sion, and plunge into excitement, and take counsel of our feelings rather than our judgment,--we are following in the footsteps of our fanatical ancestors. It would be wiser to direct our ridicule and reproaches to the delusions of our own times than to those of a previous age; and it becomes us to treat with charity and mercy the failings of our predecessors, at least until we have ceased to imitate and repeat them.

It has been my object to collect and arrange all the materials within reach necessary to give a correct and adequate view of the pa.s.sage of history related and discussed in this work, and to suggest the considerations and conclusions required by truth and justice. It is worthy of the most thoughtful contemplation. The moralist, metaphysician, and political philosopher will find few chapters of human experience more fraught with instruction, and may well ponder upon the lessons it teaches, scrutinize thoroughly all its periods, phases, and branches, a.n.a.lyze its causes, eliminate its elements, and mark its developments. The laws, energies, capabilities, and liabilities of our nature, as exhibited in the character of individuals and in the action of society, are remarkably ill.u.s.trated.

The essential facts belonging to the transaction, gathered from authentic records and reliable testimonies and traditions, have been faithfully presented. THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION OF 1692, so far as I have been able to recover it from misunderstanding and oblivion, has been brought to view; and I indulge the belief, that the subject will commend itself to, and reward, the study of every meditative mind.

I know not in what better terms the discussion of this subject can be brought to a termination, than in those which express the conclusions to which one of our own most distinguished citizens was brought, after having examined the whole transaction with the eye of a lawyer and the spirit of a judge. The following is from the Centennial Discourse p.r.o.nounced in Salem on the 18th of September, 1828, by the late Hon.

Joseph Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States:--

"We may lament, then," says he, "the errors of the times, which led to these prosecutions. But surely our ancestors had no special reasons for shame in a belief which had the universal sanction of their own and all former ages; which counted in its train philosophers, as well as enthusiasts; which was graced by the learning of prelates, as well as by the countenance of kings; which the law supported by its mandates, and the purest judges felt no compunctions in enforcing. Let Witch Hill remain for ever memorable by this sad catastrophe, not to perpetuate our dishonor, but as an affecting, enduring proof of human infirmity; a proof that perfect justice belongs to one judgment-seat only,--that which is linked to the throne of G.o.d."

In the work which has now reached its close, many strange phases of humanity have been exposed. We have beheld, with astonishment and horror, the extent to which it is liable to be the agent and victim of delusion and ruin. Folly that cannot be exceeded; wrong, outrage, and woe, melting the heart that contemplates them; and crime, not within our power or province to measure,--have pa.s.sed before us. But not the dark side only of our nature has been displayed. Manifestations of innocence, heroism, invincible devotion to truth, integrity of soul triumphing over all the terrors and horrors that can be acc.u.mulated in life and in death, Christian piety in its most heavenly radiance, have mingled in the drama, whose curtain is now to fall. n.o.ble specimens of virtue in man and woman, old and young, have shed a light, as from above, upon its dark and melancholy scenes. Not only the sufferers, but some of those who shared the dread responsibility of the crisis, demand our commiseration, and did what they could to atone for their error.

The conduct of Judge Sewall claims our particular admiration. He observed annually in private a day of humiliation and prayer, during the remainder of his life, to keep fresh in his mind a sense of repentance and sorrow for the part he bore in the trials. On the day of the general fast, he rose in the place where he was accustomed to wors.h.i.+p, the Old South, in Boston, and, in the presence of the great a.s.sembly, handed up to the pulpit a written confession, acknowledging the error into which he had been led, praying for the forgiveness of G.o.d and his people, and concluding with a request to all the congregation to unite with him in devout supplication, that it might not bring down the displeasure of the Most High upon his country, his family, or himself. He remained standing during the public reading of the paper. This was an act of true manliness and dignity of soul.

The following pa.s.sage is found in his diary, under the date of April 23, 1720, nearly thirty years afterwards. It was suggested by the perusal of Neal's "History of New England:"--

"In Dr. Neal's 'History of New England,' its nakedness is laid open in the businesses of the Quakers, Anabaptists, witchcraft. The judges' names are mentioned p. 502; my confession, p. 536, vol. ii. The good and gracious G.o.d be pleased to save New England and me, and my family!"

There never was a more striking and complete fulfilment of the apostolic a.s.surance, that the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, than in this instance. G.o.d has been pleased, in a remarkable manner, to save and bless New England. The favor of Heaven was bestowed upon Judge Sewall during the remainder of his life. He presided for many years on the bench where he committed the error so sincerely deplored by him, and was regarded by all as a benefactor, an ornament, and a blessing to the community: while his family have enjoyed to a high degree the protection of Providence from that day to this; have adorned every profession, and every department of society; have filled with honor the most elevated stations; have graced, in successive generations, the same lofty seat their ancestor occupied; and been the objects of the confidence, respect, and love of their fellow-citizens.

Your thoughts have been led through scenes of the most distressing and revolting character. I leave before your imaginations one bright with all the beauty of Christian virtue,--that which exhibits Judge Sewall standing forth in the house of his G.o.d and in the presence of his fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers, making a public declaration of his sorrow and regret for the mistaken judgment he had co-operated with others in p.r.o.nouncing. Here you have a representation of a truly great and magnanimous spirit; a spirit to which the divine influence of our religion had given an expansion and a l.u.s.tre that Roman or Grecian virtue never knew; a spirit that had achieved a greater victory than warrior ever won,--a victory over itself; a spirit so n.o.ble and so pure, that it felt no shame in acknowledging an error, and publicly imploring, for a great wrong done to his fellow-creatures, the forgiveness of G.o.d and man.

Our Ess.e.x poet, whose beautiful genius has made cla.s.sical the banks of his own Merrimac, shed a romantic light over the early homes and characters of New England, and brought back to life the spirit, forms, scenes, and men of the past, has not failed to immortalize, in his verse, the profound penitence of the misguided but upright judge:--

"Touching and sad, a tale is told, Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, Of the fast which the good man life-long kept With a haunting sorrow that never slept, As the circling year brought round the time Of an error that left the sting of crime, When he sat on the bench of the witchcraft courts, With the laws of Moses and 'Hale's Reports,'

And spake, in the name of both, the word That gave the witch's neck to the cord, And piled the oaken planks that pressed The feeble life from the warlock's breast!

All the day long, from dawn to dawn, His door was bolted, his curtain drawn; No foot on his silent threshold trod, No eye looked on him save that of G.o.d, As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with charms Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, And, with precious proofs from the sacred Word Of the boundless pity and love of the Lord, His faith confirmed and his trust renewed, That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, Might be washed away in the mingled flood Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear blood!"

SUPPLEMENT.

SUPPLEMENT.

[The subject of Salem Witchcraft has been traced to its conclusion, and discussed within its proper limits, in the foregoing work. But whoever is interested in it as a chapter of history or an exhibition of humanity may feel a curiosity, on some points, that reasonably demands gratification. The questions will naturally arise, Who were the earliest to extricate themselves and the public from the delusion? what is known, beyond the facts mentioned in the progress of the foregoing discussion, of the later fortunes of its prominent actors? what the view taken in the retrospect by individuals and public bodies implicated in the transaction? and what opinions on the general subject have subsequently prevailed? To answer these questions is the design of this Supplement.]

It can hardly be said that there was any open and avowed opposition in the community to the proceedings during their early progress. There is some uncertainty and obscurity to what extent there was an unexpressed dissent in the minds of particular private persons. On the general subject of the existence and power of the Devil and his agency, more or less, in influencing human and earthly affairs, it would be difficult to prove that there was any considerable difference of opinion.

The first undisguised and unequivocal opposition to the proceedings was a remarkable doc.u.ment that has recently come to light. Among some papers which have found their way to the custody of the Ess.e.x Inst.i.tute, is a letter, dated "Salisbury, Aug. 9, 1692," addressed "To the wors.h.i.+pful Jonathan Corwin, Esq., these present at his house in Salem." It is indorsed, "A letter to my grandfather, on account of the condemnation of the witches." Its date shows that it was written while the public infatuation and fury were at their height, and the Court was sentencing to death and sending to the gallows its successive cartloads. There is no injunction of secresy, and no shrinking from responsibility. Although the name of the writer is not given in full, he was evidently well known to Corwin, and had written to him before on the subject. The messenger, in accordance with the superscription, undoubtedly delivered it into the hands of the judge at his residence on the corner of Ess.e.x and North Streets. The fact that Jonathan Corwin preserved this doc.u.ment, and placed it in the permanent files of his family papers, is pretty good proof that he appreciated the weight of its arguments. It is not improbable that he expressed himself to that effect to his brethren on the bench, and perhaps to others. What he said, and the fact that he was holding such a correspondence, may have reached the ears of the accusers, and led them to commence a movement against him by crying out upon his mother-in-law.

The letter is a most able argument against the manner in which the trials were conducted, and, by conclusive logic, overthrows the whole fabric of the evidence on the strength of which the Court was convicting and taking the lives of innocent persons. No such piece of reasoning has come to us from that age. Its author must be acknowledged to have been an expert in dialectic subtleties, and a pure reasoner of unsurpa.s.sed ac.u.men and force. It requires, but it will reward, the closest attention and concentration of thought in following the threads of the argument. It reaches its conclusions on a most difficult subject with clearness and certainty. It achieves and realizes, in mere mental processes, quant.i.ties, and forces, on the points at which it aims, what is called demonstration in mathematics and geometry.

The writer does not discredit, but seems to have received, the then prevalent doctrines relating to the personality, power, and attributes of the Devil; and, from that standpoint, controverts and demolishes the principles on which the Court was proceeding, in reference to the "spectral evidence" and the credibility of the "afflicted children"

generally. The letter, and the formal argument appended to it, arrest notice in one or two general aspects. There is an appearance of their having proceeded from an elderly person, not at all from any marks of infirmity of intellect, but rather from an air of wisdom and a tone of authority which can only result from long experience and observation.

The circ.u.mstance that an amanuensis was employed, and the author writes the initials of his signature only, strengthens this impression. At the same time, there are indications of a free and progressive spirit, more likely to have had force at an earlier period of life. In some aspects, the doc.u.ment indicates a theological education, and familiarity with matters that belong to the studies of a minister; in others, it manifests habits of mind and modes of expression and reasoning more natural to one accustomed to close legal statements and deductions. If the production of a trained professional man of either cla.s.s, it would justly be regarded as remarkable. If its author belonged to neither cla.s.s, but was merely a local magistrate, farmer, and militia officer, it becomes more than remarkable. There must have been a high development among the founders of our villages, when the laity could present examples of such a capacity to grasp the most difficult subjects, and conduct such acute and abstruse disquisitions. [See Appendix.]

The question as to the authors.h.i.+p of this paper may well excite interest, involving, as it does, minute critical speculations. The elements that enter into its solution ill.u.s.trate the difficulties and perplexities encompa.s.sing the study of local antiquities, and attempts to determine the origin and bearings of old doc.u.ments or to settle minute points of history. The weight of evidence seems to indicate that the doc.u.ment is attributable to Major Robert Pike, of Salisbury.

Whoever was its author did his duty n.o.bly, and stands alone, above all the scholars and educated men of the time, in bearing testimony openly, bravely, in the very ears of the Court, against the disgraceful and shocking course they were pursuing.[A]

[Footnote A: The facts and considerations in reference to the authors.h.i.+p of the letter to Jonathan Corwin may be summarily stated as follows:--

The letter is signed "R.P." Under these initials is written, "Robert Pain," in a different hand, and, as the ink as well as the chirography shows, at a somewhat later date. R.P. are blotted over, but with ink of such lighter hue that the original letters are clearly discernible under it. A Robert Paine graduated at Harvard College, in 1656. But he was probably the foreman of the grand jury that brought in all the indictments in the witchcraft trials; and therefore could not, from the declarations in the letter itself, have been its author. The only other person of that name at the time, of whom we have knowledge, was his father, who seems, by the evidence we have, to have died in 1693.

(That date is given in the Harvard Triennial for the death of Robert Paine, the graduate; but erroneously, I think, as signatures to doc.u.ments, and conveyances of property subsequently, can hardly be ascribed to any other person.) Robert Paine, the father, from the earliest settlement of Ipswich, had been one of the leading men of the town, apparently of larger property than any other, often its deputy in the General Court, and, for a great length of time, ruling elder of the church. "Elder Pain," or Penn, as the name was often spelled, enjoyed the friends.h.i.+p of John Norton, and all the ministers far and near; and religious meetings were often held at his house. We know nothing to justify us in saying that he could not have been the author of this paper; but we also know nothing, except the appearance of his name upon it, to impute it to him.

The doc.u.ment is dated from "Salisbury." So far as we know, Elder Paine always lived in Ipswich; although, having property in the upper county, he may have often been, and possibly in his last years resided, there. It is, it is true, a strong circ.u.mstance, that his name is written, although by a late hand, under the initials. It shows that the person who wrote it thought that "R.P." meant Robert Paine; but any one conversant especially with the antiquities of Ipswich, or this part of the county, might naturally fall into such a mistake. The authors.h.i.+p of doc.u.ments was often erroneously ascribed. The words "Robert Pain" were, probably, not on the paper when the indors.e.m.e.nt was made, "A letter to my grandfather," &c. Elder Robert Paine, if living in 1692, was ninety-one years of age. The doc.u.ment under consideration, if composed by him, is truly a marvellous production,--an intellectual phenomenon not easily to be paralleled.