Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,075 pages of information about Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II.

Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,075 pages of information about Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II.

What prevented action, we do not know; but nothing was done.  Six years afterwards, on the 25th of May, 1709, an “humble address” was presented to the General Court by certain inhabitants of the province, some of whom “had their near relations, either parents or others, who suffered death in the dark and doleful times that passed over this province in 1692;” and others “who themselves, or some of their relations, were imprisoned, impaired and blasted in their reputations and estates by reason of the same.”  They pray for the passage of a “suitable act” to restore the reputations of the sufferers, and to make some remuneration “as to what they have been damnified in their estates thereby.”  This paper was signed by Philip English and twenty-one others.  Philip English gave in an account in detail of what articles were seized and carried away, at the time of his arrest, from four of his warehouses, his wharf, and shop-house, besides the expenses incurred in prison, and in escaping from it.  It appears by this statement, that he and his wife were nine weeks in jail at Salem and Boston.  Nothing was done at this session.  The next year, Sept. 12, 1710, Isaac Easty presented a strong memorial to the General Court in reference to his case.  He calls for some remuneration.  In speaking of the arrest and execution of his “beloved wife,” he says “my sorrow and trouble of heart in being deprived of her in such a manner, which this world can never make me any compensation for.”  At the same time, the daughters of Elizabeth How, the son of Sarah Wildes, the heirs of Mary Bradbury, Edward Bishop and his wife Sarah, sent in severally similar petitions,—­all in earnest and forcible language.  Charles, one of the sons of George Burroughs, presented the case of his “dear and honored father;” declaring that his innocence of the crime of which he was accused, and his excellence of character, were shown in “his careful catechising his children, and upholding religion in his family, and by his solemn and savory written instructions from prison.”  He describes in affecting details the condition in which his father’s family of little children was left at his death.  One of Mr. Burroughs’s daughters, upon being required to sign a paper in reference to compensation, expresses her distress of mind in these words:  “Every discourse on this melancholy subject doth but give a fresh wound to my bleeding heart.  I desire to sit down in silence.”  John Moulton, in behalf of the family of Giles Corey, says that they “cannot sufficiently express their grief” for the death, in such a manner, of “their honored father and mother.”  Samuel Nurse, in behalf of his brothers and sisters, says that their “honored and dear mother had led a blameless life from her youth up....  Her name and the name of her posterity lies under reproach, the removing of which reproach is the principal thing wherein we desire restitution.  And, as we know not how to express our loss of such a mother in such a way, so we know not how to compute our charge, but leave it to the judgment of others, and shall not be critical.”  He distinctly intimates, that they do not wish any money to be paid them, unless “the attainder is taken off.”  Many other petitions were presented by the families of those who suffered, all in the same spirit; and several besides the Nurses insisted mainly upon the “taking off the attainder.”

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Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.