“Would the inhabitants have elected Sir William Phips,” asked Laurence, “if the choice of governor had been left to them?”

“He might probably have been a successful candidate,” answered Grandfather; “for his adventures and military enterprises had gained him a sort of renown, which always goes a great way with the people.  And he had many popular characteristics, being a kind, warm-hearted man, not ashamed of his low origin, nor haughty in his present elevation.  Soon after his arrival, he proved that he did not blush to recognize his former associates.”

“How was that?” inquired Charley.

“He made a grand festival at his new brick house,” said Grandfather, “and invited all the ship-carpenters of Boston to be his guests.  At the head of the table, in our great chair, sat Sir William Phips himself, treating these hard handed men as his brethren, cracking jokes with them, and talking familiarly about old times.  I know not whether he wore his embroidered dress, but I rather choose to imagine that he had on a suit of rough clothes, such as he used to labor in, while he was Phips the ship-carpenter.”

“An aristocrat need not be ashamed of the trade,” observed Laurence; “for the czar Peter the Great once served an apprenticeship to it.”

“Did Sir William Phips make as good a governor as he was a ship-carpenter?” asked Charley.

“History says but little about his merits as a ship-carpenter,” answered Grandfather; “but, as a governor, a great deal of fault was found with him.  Almost as soon as he assumed the government, he became engaged in a very frightful business, which might have perplexed a wiser and better cultivated head than his.  This was the witchcraft delusion.”

And here Grandfather gave his auditors such details of this melancholy affair, as he thought it fit for them to know.  They shuddered to hear that a frenzy, which led to the death of many innocent persons, had originated in the wicked arts of a few children.  They belonged to the Rev. Mr. Parris, minister of Salem.  These children complained of being pinched, and pricked with pins, and otherwise tormented by the shapes of men and women, who were supposed to have power to haunt them invisibly, both in darkness and daylight.  Often, in the midst of their family and friends, the children would pretend to be seized with strange convulsions, and would cry out that the witches were afflicting them.

These stories spread abroad, and caused great tumult and alarm.  From the foundation of New England, it had been the custom of the inhabitants, in all matters of doubt and difficulty, to look to their ministers for council.  So they did now; but, unfortunately, the ministers and wise men were more deluded than the illiterate people.  Cotton Mather, a very learned and eminent clergyman, believed that the whole country was full of witches and wizards, who had given up their hopes of heaven, and signed a covenant with the Evil One.