He mentions, in the course of his letter, among those persons known by him to disapprove of the proceedings,—­

“The Hon. Simon Bradstreet, Esq. (our late governor), the Hon. Thomas Danforth, Esq. (our late deputy-governor), the Rev. Mr. Increase Mather, and the Rev. Mr. Samuel Willard.  Major N. Saltonstall, Esq., who was one of the judges, has left the court, and is very much dissatisfied with the proceedings of it.  Excepting Mr. Hale, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Parris, the reverend elders, almost throughout the whole country, are very much dissatisfied.  Several of the late justices—­viz., Thomas Graves, Esq.; N. Byfield, Esq.; Francis Foxcroft, Esq.—­are much dissatisfied; also several of the present justices, and, in particular, some of the Boston justices, were resolved rather to throw up their commissions than be active in disturbing the liberty of Their Majesties’ subjects merely on the accusations of these afflicted, possessed children.”

It is to be observed, that the dissatisfaction was with some of the methods adopted in the proceedings, and not with the prosecutions themselves.  Increase Mather and Samuel Willard signed the paper indorsing Deodat Lawson’s famous sermon, which surely drove on the prosecutions; and the former expressed, in print, his approbation of his son Cotton’s “Wonders of the Invisible World,” in which he labors to defend the witchcraft prosecutions, and to make it out that those who suffered were “malefactors.”  Dr. Increase Mather is understood to have countenanced the burning of Calef’s book, some few years afterwards, in the square of the public grounds of Harvard College, of which institution he was then president.  It cannot be doubted, however, that both the elder Mather and Mr. Willard had expressed, more or less distinctly, their disapprobation of some of the details of the proceedings.  It is honorable to their memories, and shows that the former was not wholly blinded by parental weakness, but willing to express his dissent, in some particulars, from the course of his distinguished son, and that the latter had an independence of character which enabled him to criticise and censure a court in which three of his parishioners sat as judges.

Brattle relates a story which seems to indicate that Increase Mather sometimes was unguarded enough to express himself with severity against those who gave countenance to the proceedings.  “A person from Boston, of no small note, carried up his child to Salem, near twenty miles, on purpose that he might consult the afflicted about his child, which accordingly he did; and the afflicted told him that his child was afflicted by Mrs. Carey and Mrs. Obinson.”  The “afflicted,” in this and some other instances, had struck too high.  The magistrates in Boston were unwilling to issue a warrant against Mrs. Obinson, and Mrs. Carey had fled.  All that the man got for his pains, in carrying his child to Salem, was a hearty scolding from Increase Mather, who asked him “whether there was not a God in Boston, that he should go to the Devil, in Salem, for advice.”