until “May ye 7” of the following year that the selectmen were fortunate enough to put their finger on this rara avis in the person of Mr. Tho.  Phippes, who agreed “to be scollmaster for the the towen this yr insewing for teaching the inhabitants children in such manner as other schollmasters yously doe throughout the countrie:  for his soe doinge we the sellectt men in behalfe of ower towen doe ingage to pay him by way of rate twenty pounds and yt he shall and may reserve from every father or master that sends theyer children to school this yeare after ye rate of 16s. for readers, writers and cypherers 20s., Lattiners 24s.”

Modern advocates of phonetic spelling need not plume themselves on their originality.  The town clerk who wrote that delicious “yously doe” settles the question.  It is to be hoped that Mr. Tho.  Phippes was not only “not visious in conversation,” but was more conventional in his orthography.  He evidently gave satisfaction, and clearly exerted an influence on the town clerk, Mr. Samuel Keais, who ever after shows a marked improvement in his own methods.  In 1704 the town empowered the selectmen “to call and settell a gramer scoll according to ye best of yower judgement and for ye advantag [Keais is obviously dead now] of ye youth of ower town to learn them to read from ye primer, to wright and sypher and to learne ym the tongues and good-manners.”  On this occasion it was Mr. William Allen, of Salisbury, who engaged “dilligently to attend ye school for ye present yeare, and tech all childern yt can read in thaire psallters and upward.”  From such humble beginnings were evolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England.

Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe that no hangings took place within the boundaries of the township.  Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are.  There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination.  The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of a perpetual mystery; only a strip of yellow sand or gray rock separates them from the unknown; they hear strange voices in the winds at midnight, they are haunted by the spectres of the mirage.  Their minds quickly take the impress of uncanny things.  The witches therefore found a sympathetic atmosphere in Newscastle, at the mouth of the Piscataqua—­that slender paw of land which reaches out into the ocean and terminates in a spread of sharp, flat rocks, lie the claws of an amorous cat.  What happened to the good folk of that picturesque little fishing-hamlet is worth retelling in brief.  In order properly to retell it, a contemporary witness shall be called upon to testify in the case of the Stone-Throwing Devils of Newcastle.  It is the Rev. Cotton Mather who addresses you—­“On June 11, 1682, showers of stones were thrown by an invisible hand upon the house of George Walton at Portsmouth [Newcastle was then a part of the town].  Whereupon