The history of Robert Pike proves that he was a man of great ability, had a turn of mind towards logical exercises, and was, from early life, conversant with disputations.  Nearly fifty years before, he argued in town-meeting against the propriety, in view of civil and ecclesiastical law, of certain acts of the General Court.  They arraigned, disfranchised, and otherwise punished him for his “litigiousness:”  but the weight of his character soon compelled them to restore his political rights; and the people of Salisbury, the very next year, sent him among them as their deputy, and continued him from time to time in that capacity.  At a subsequent period, he was the leader and spokesman of a party in a controversy about some ecclesiastical affairs, involving apparently certain nice questions of theology, which created a great stir through the country.  The contest reached so high a point, that the church at Salisbury excommunicated him; but the public voice demanded a council of churches, which assembled in September, 1676, and re-instated Major Pike condemning his excommunication, “finding it not justifiable upon divers grounds.”  On this occasion, as before, the General Court frowned upon and denounced him; but the people came again to his rescue, sending him at the next election into the House of Deputies, and kept him there until raised to the Upper House as an Assistant.  He was in the practice of conducting causes in the courts, and was long a local magistrate and one of the county judges.

He does not appear to have been present at any of the trials or examinations of 1692; but his official position as Assistant caused many depositions taken in his neighborhood to be acknowledged and sworn before him.  While entertaining the prevalent views about diabolical agency, he always disapproved of the proceedings of the Court in the particulars to which the arguments of the communication to Jonathan Corwin apply,—­the “spectre evidence,”—­and the statements and actings of “the afflicted children.”  There are indications that sometimes he saw through the folly of the stories told by persons whose depositions he was called to attest.  One John Pressy was circulating a wonderful tale about an encounter he had with the spectre of Susanna Martin.  Pike sent for him, and took his deposition.  Pressy averred, that, one evening, coming from Amesbury Ferry, he fell in with the shape of Martin in the form of a body of light, which “seemed to be about the bigness of a half-bushel.”  After much dodging and manoeuvring, and being lost and bewildered, wandering to and fro, tumbling into holes,—­where, as the deposition states, no “such pitts” were known to exist,—­and other misadventures, he came to blows with the light, and had several brushes with it, striking it with his stick.  At one time, “he thinks he gave her at least forty blows.”  He finally succeeded in finding “his own house:  but, being then seized with fear, could not speak till his wife spoke to him at the door, and was in