This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt: ...one of the Judges, and it soon became evident that he did not share, but was distinctly opposed to, the cruel fanaticism of the Chief Judge Stoughton. It is not unlikely that his was the voice from the bench of the Special Court at Salem, in January, 1693, which directed the jury, upon inquiry as to the value of the ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 Excerpt: ...one of the Judges, and it soon became evident that he did not share, but was distinctly opposed to, the cruel fanaticism of the Chief Judge Stoughton. It is not unlikely that his was the voice from the bench of the Special Court at Salem, in January, 1693, which directed the jury, upon inquiry as to the value of the spectral evidence, to regard it as much as they would "chips in wort."' He presided in the following court at Charlestown, after Stoughton had left the bench in a rage of passionate anger, on hearing that Governor Phips had interfered to save eight of those condemned from the gallows: and when he died in 1699, the diary of a contemporary stone-mason in Boston recorded what was doubtless the popular estimate of him, as one " who had a cheif hand under God in puting an end to the troubles under which the Country Groaned anno 1692.-"' 1 The whole matter has been treated as though nobody objected to these proceedings at the time, excepting, perhaps, the victims, who naturally and of course did not like to be hung! Judge Sewall, whose confession is the most honorable document of all that have been preserved, in behalf of any one of the prominent actors in the tragedy, seems to have been unable to recall the events of that time without a shudder and evidently bitter pangs of remorse. If the reticence of the whole community on the subject were not so striking a feature of its history, the scantiness of his records would be more remarkable. Not a single allusion to any of the efforts to obtain restitution is to be found among the numerous notices of legislative proceedings scattered through his diary. But he did, at some day of his after-life, add in a marginal note near the beginning of his contemporary entries during that fatal yea...
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