“Tituba, the Indian woman, examined March 1, 1692.

“Q. Why do you hurt these poor children? What harm have they done unto you?

“A. They do no harm to me. I no hurt them at all.”

The first question by the magistrates implies the presence there of the afflicted children, and of their then seeming to be invisibly hurt. It also implies the magistrate’s assumption that Tituba was hurting them. Her denial that either they had harmed her or that she was hurting them was distinct. But the magistrate seemingly doubted its truth or its sufficiency, for he next asked,—

“Q. Why have you done it?

“A. I have done nothing. I can’t tell when the devil works.

“Q. What? Doth the devil tell you that he hurts them?

“A. No. He tells me nothing.”

She conceded here that the Devil might be, and probably was, at work upon the children; but his doings were beyond the reach of her perceptive faculties. He made no communication to her. Thus early her words indicate that her knowledge of spiritual matters caused her to draw and adhere to a distinction between The Devil and either a Spirit, or bands of spirits, which distinction she and other mediumistic ones of her times adhered to, while the public lacked knowledge that facts required it, and ignorantly called all visitants from spirit realms The Devil.

When glancing at Cotton Mather’s unpublished account of Mercy Short, we copied from it the following statement: “As the bewitched in other parts of the world have commonly had no other style for their tormentors but only They and Them, so had Mercy Short.” Clairvoyants and all who obtained knowledge of spirits through perceptions by their own interior organs seldom, if ever, have seriously spoken of either seeing, hearing, or feeling the Devil. Possibly, at times, some may have done so by way of accommodation to the unillumined world’s modes of speech. But, as Mather says, they have, the world over, generally called the personages perceived, “They” and “Them.” Such a fact demands regard. The personal observers of spiritual beings have never been accustomed to designate them by bad names. Fair inference from this is, that such beings have not generally worn forbidding aspects. It has been the reporters, and not the utterers, of descriptive accounts of spiritual beings who have made use of the terms “devil,” “satan,” and the like. Mather perceived the common “style” of the bewitched, and yet the warping habit of Christendom made him preserve continuance of inaccurate reporting; for he, like most others in his day, persistently wrote “devil,” where that name was not announced, and ought not to have been foisted in. Tituba saw no one whom she ever called The Devil, though history has taught that she did.

“Q. Do you never see something appear in some shape? A. No. Never see anything.”

This answer is not true if construed literally in connection with its question. She did, as will soon appear, sometimes see many things clairvoyantly, but never The Devil, who had just before been mentioned.

“Q. What familiarity have you with the devil, or what is it that you converse withal? Tell the truth, who it is that hurts them. A. The devil, for aught I know.”

She persistently admits that the devil may be then and there at work, but asserts that she does not know anything about him.

“Q. What appearance, or how doth he appear when he hurts them?”

She makes no reply when asked how the Devil hurts. She ignores him.

“Q. With what shape, or what is he like that hurts them? A. Like a man, I think. Yesterday, I being in the lean-to chamber, I saw a thing like a man, that told me serve him. I told him no, I would not do such thing.”

Devil had now been dropped from the question, and he substituted. What is he like? Then she promptly mentioned an apparition not only visible, but audible, who, if carefully scanned, may prove to have been chief author and enactor of Salem witchcraft. She who saw and heard him says he was “like a man, I think,”—was “a thing like a man.” According to her perceptions he was not the devil. She did not know the devil. Others at that time and ever since have called her visitant the devil. But Tituba, who saw, heard, and thus knew him, did not and would not.

Next comes in, parenthetically, a summary of her sayings and doings, as follows:—

(“She charges Goody Osburn and Sarah Good, as those that hurt them children, and would have had her done it; she saith she hath seen four, two which she knew not; she saw them last night as she was washing the room. They told me hurt the children, and would have had me gone to Boston. There was five of them with the man. They told me if I would not go and hurt them, they would do so to me. At first I did agree with them, but afterward, I told them I would do so no more.”)

According to this summary, apparitions multiplied; for, besides the man, she saw four women around herself: that company threatened to hurt her if she would not unite with them in hurting the children. Two of these were apparitions of her living neighbors, Good and Osburn, then under arrest; the other three were strangers. We shall soon see that she believed, what is probably true, that apparitions of particular persons can be not only presented by occult intelligences to the inner vision, but put into apparent vigorous action, while the genuine persons thus presented in counterfeit have no consciousness either of being present at the exhibition, or of performing, either then or at any other time, the acts which they seem to put forth.The conceptions which this simple mind held concerning the nature, powers, and purposes of those who came to her in manner strange to most mortals, are pretty clearly indicated. By her likening them to men and women, and by her protests against their forcing her to act cruelly, she justifies the inference that she failed to see in or about them anything very forbidding, awful, or satanic. She admitted the possibility that the devil might have hurt the children, but also asserted that, if so, his action was unbeknown to her. The “something like a man,” together with these women and herself under compulsion, were the afflicting ones, so far as her vision or other senses could determine. She nowhere applies the term “devil” to her male apparition. No hoofs, horns, or tail, no sable hues or frightful form, are brought to view by this clairvoyant’s description of her occult companions. They wore, in her sight, the semblances of a man and of women—not of devils.

How different would have been results had her simple words and instructive facts been credited and made the basis of judicial decisions! Could she have been calmly and rationally listened to by minds freed from a blinding and irritating faith that Christendom’s witchcraft devil was her companion and prompter, her plain and definite exposition of the actors who generated troubles which were profound mysteries to her superiors in external knowledge and penetration, would have brought all the marvels of that day within the domain of natural things, and warded off the horrors which ensued.

“Q. Would they have had you hurt the children last night? A. Yes, but I was sorry, and I said I would do so no more, but told I would fear God. Q. But why did not you do so before? A. Why, they tell me I had done so before, and therefore I must go on. (These were the four women and the man, but she knew none but Osburn and Good only; the others were of Boston.”)

If we get at what Tituba meant by the words just quoted, it was substantially this: “They wanted me, and forced me against my will, to join with them in hurting the children last night. I was sorry that I was forced to act cruelly, and told them that I would not be forced to it again, but would serve God. I did not take that stand before, because they told me I had already worked with them, and therefore must go on.

“Q. At first beginning with them, what then appeared to you? What was it like that got you to do it? A. One like a man, just as I was going to sleep, came to me. This was when the children was first hurt. He said he would kill the children and she would never be well; and he said if I would not serve him he would do so to me.”

The witness was here apparently brought to describe her first interview with the author of Salem witchcraft. We see her now standing at the fountainhead of the devastating torrent which soon deluged the region far around with terror, anguish, and blood. Who first appeared to her? Who was the prime mover? And when was he first seen? Subsequent statements are soon to show that on Friday, January 15, 1692, six weeks and four days before the time when she gave in this testimony, one like a man, just as she was going to sleep, came to her and demanded her aid in hurting the children. The fact is clearly stated that five days before the Wednesday evening when the children were first hurt by spirit appliances, and supposed to be taken sick, “one like a man,” when Tituba was about going to sleep, came to her and avowed his purpose, in advance, to torture and even kill the children. From that time forth she knew the source of the strange operations in her master’s family.

“Q. Is that the same man that appeared before to you, that appeared last night and told you this? A. Yes.”

Her visitor was the same person on these two different occasions, which were more than six weeks apart, and in her various clairvoyant excursions and feats he was frequently, if not always, her attendant.

“Q. What other likenesses besides a man hath appeared unto you? A. Sometimes like a hog—sometimes like a great black dog—four times.”

“The man” probably assumed or presented those brutish forms. A frequent teaching of spirit visitants is, that they “can assume any form which the occasion requires;” they also have often given the impression that they cannot assume hues brighter than inherently pertain to their own intellectual and moral conditions, but of this we have yet no conclusive information.

“Q. But what did they say unto you? A. They told me serve him, and that was a good way. That was the black dog. I told him I was afraid. He told me he would be worse then to me.”

Her dog could talk. She and the court obviously understood the dog to be the same being, essentially, as the “one like a man.” For,—“Q. What did you say to him, then, after that? A. I answer I will serve you no longer. He told me he would do me hurt then.”

Can any one doubt that she conceived herself to be speaking to the same being, though in dog form, that she had yielded to before in form like a man? There is no indication that she had previously served a dog, and yet she says to this one, I will serve you no longer.

“Q. What other creatures have you seen? A. A bird. Q. What bird? A. A little yellow bird. Q. Where does it keep? A. With the man, who hath pretty things more besides. Q. What other pretty things? A. He hath not showed them unto me, but he said he would show them to me to-morrow, and told me if I would serve him, I should have the bird. Q. What other creatures did you see? A. I saw two cats, one red, another black, as big as a little dog. Q. What did these cats do? A. I don’t know. I have seen them two times. Q. What did they say? A. They say serve them. Q. When did you see them? A. I saw them last night. Q. Did they do any hurt to you or threaten you? A. They did scratch me. Q. When? A. After prayer; and scratched me because I would not serve her. And when they went away I could not see, but they stood by the fire. Q. What service do they expect from you? A. They say more hurt to the children. Q. How did you pinch them when you hurt them? A. The other pull me and haul me to pinch the child, and I am very sorry for it.”

The cats also as well as the dog spoke and commanded her obedience. She saw these the night before her examination. “When they went away,” she says, “I could not see.” Those words may admit of two distinct and different meanings. First, that the cats disappeared without her being able to notice their exit; or, second, that before they went she became spiritually blind—“could not longer see” clairvoyantly. In a subsequent statement she pleads a sudden obscuration of her internal vision. All clairvoyants are subject to sudden interruptions of their spiritual power to see.

She was pulled and hauled by “the other” with a view to force her to “pinch the child.” Here again her obvious conviction was that the “other” was essentially more than mere brute. She did not think a cat pulled and hauled her, but meant that when the cats visited her, the “something like a man”—“the other”—was also present, and urged her on to mischief.

“Q. What made you hold your arm when you were searched? What had you there? A. I had nothing. Q. Do not those cats suck you? A. No, never yet. I would not let them. But they had almost thrust me into the fire. Q. How do you hurt those that you pinch? Do you get those cats, or other things, to do it for you? Tell us how it is done. A. The man sends the cats to me, and bids me pinch them; and I think I went once to Mr. Griggs’s, and have pinched her this day in the morning. The man brought Mr. Griggs’s maid to me, and made me pinch her.”

By “the man” she obviously meant her frequent spirit visitor. He it was who brought the cats to her, and made her pinch them, and by so doing pinch the “maid,” who physically was miles distant. Such is her statement. An inference from it is, that properties from Elizabeth Hubbard,—the maid in question,—who was among the afflicted ones, and was a member of the circle, were drawn out from her by “the man,” and made component parts of apparitional cats formed by the man’s thought and will powers, which seeming cats, being pinched by Tituba’s spirit fingers, the Hubbard girl, some of whose properties were used for constructing those apparitional cats, felt the pinchings, first in her spirit, and thence in her flesh, though her body was two or three miles distant from the pincher. In that mode “the man” commanded the use of some properties in Tituba, by which he produced torture in a mediumistic physical organism then being far away. Another mode of spirit operation is indicated. Tituba confessed to a dim consciousness that once, by some process, her spirit-self had been got over to Dr. Griggs’s, and pinched the maid at her home. Again, she believed that the same maid had been brought to her (Tituba’s) abode and pinched there. Also it will be seen a little further on, that, Tituba being charged with having been over at the maid’s home on a specified day, denied having been there at that particular time, but admitted that her apparition might, unconsciously to herself, have been seen there then, for she says, “may be send something like me.”

We enter a distinct protest against stigmatizing such testimony as “incoherent nonsense.” In response to a command to tell how the mysterious inflictions were brought about, this untaught, ignorant woman, calmly and with much distinctness, indicated four or five modes by which psychologic forces were brought to bear upon mediumistic subjects. She had seen the processes, and, in her simple way, told what she had learned by personal observation and experience; and thus she helps us, at this day, to fathom and expound the mysteries of witchcraft more effectually than do all her cotemporaries. Notwithstanding her limited command of language, her statements were about as distinct and instructive as any one then could have made upon such a topic; but the devil-warped public mind of that day was unable to see the literal import of her testimony, or to turn her knowledge to good account.

Two other women, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, names previously mentioned, were, on the same March 1, 1692, under examination as co-operators with Tituba in practicing witchcraft.

“Q. Did you ever go with these women? A. They are very strong, and pull me, and make me go with them. Q. Where did you go? A. Up to Mr. Putnam’s, and make me hurt the child. Q. Who did make you go? A. A man that is very strong, and these two women, Good and Osburn; but I am sorry. Q. How did you go? What do you ride upon? A. I ride upon a stick or pole, and Good and Osburn behind me; we ride taking hold of one another; don’t know how we go, for I saw no trees nor path, but was presently there when we were up.”

The child above referred to was Ann Putnam, daughter, twelve years old, of Thomas and Ann Putnam, who resided from two to three miles north-west from the parsonage. This girl, Ann, was one of the excessively bewitched; that is, was one of the most impressible and mediumistic members of The Circle. Tituba and her two fellow-prisoners had, either all as spirits, or she as a conscious spirit and the other two as apparitions, visited that child at her home; and, according to her own apprehension, the three women all mounted one pole, rose up into the air, and were forthwith at Mr. Putnam’s, having noticed neither path nor trees on the way. No reader will apprehend that Tituba’s physical body then left the house of Mr. Parris and went off two miles or more, on a winter’s night, to Mr. (Thomas) Putnam’s house. She says that they were “presently [instantly] there.” It was only her spirit form—thought form—that went riding upon a pole above all woods and paths. But why to Thomas Putnam’s? Probably because his wife and his daughter, as subsequent events showed, were both intensely mediumistic or susceptible to influence by thought beings; they were persons upon whom such beings could work efficiently; and that was the special reason, probably, for a visit to them. “The man” may well be presumed to have possessed perceptive powers that could determine with much accuracy what persons in all the region round about possessed the constitutional properties and the surroundings which would permit them to become pliable and serviceable implements in executing any scheme he had devised. Subsequent events proved that he selected and used such as enabled him, through intense human agony and bloodshed, to break in pieces and abolish a most cramping and enslaving creed devil-ward, which, like a horrid and disabling nightmare, had for centuries been depressing and agonizing all Christendom. Whatever was his design, his selection of instrumentalities facilitated the out-working of a broad and happy emancipation from vast mental evil. It abolished prosecutions for witchcraft throughout both America and Europe.

The ostensible object of that mental journey was to hurt the child. Such was the man’s apparent intention. That man was “very strong,” and he accomplished his purpose. Ann was hurt. His will-power was such, that, having once got hold of the elements of three susceptible and ignorant women, they were completely under his control. Tituba, who seems to have been always a conscious medium, yielded perforce to him. Her own selfhood fought against his cruelties, and she felt sorry for what she was forced to do. When under examination she made free confession of her involuntary participation in the tormenting invasions upon innocent girls, thus unwittingly jeopardizing her own life. She seems to have been frank and truthful.

“Q. How long since you began to pinch Mr. Parris’s children? A. I did not pinch them at first, but they made me afterward. Q. Have you seen Good and Osburn ride upon a pole? A. Yes; and have held fast by me; I was not at Mr. Griggs’s but once; but it may be send something like me; neither would I have gone, but they tell me they will hurt me.”

Her statement that “it may be send something like me,” shows her belief, and probably her knowledge, that her “very strong” “something like a man” was able to produce the apparition of a mediumistic person even where such person had no consciousness of being present. Spirits, in modern times, often produce such effects, and show thereby that Tituba’s comprehension of the case may have been in harmony with the nature of things, and strictly correct. She repeats again that her participation in the affairs was forced—that others made her pinch.

“Tituba. Last night they tell me I must kill somebody with a knife. Q. Who were they that told you so? A. Sarah Good and Osburn, and they would have had me kill Thomas Putnam’s child last night. (The child also affirmed that at the same time they would have had her cut off her own head; for if she would not, they told her Tituba would cut it off. And then she complained at the same time of a knife cutting her. When her master hath asked her (Tituba?) about these things, she saith they will not let her tell, but tell her if she tells, her head shall be cut off.) Q. Who tells you so? A. The man, Good, and Osburn’s wife. (Goody Good came to her last night when her master was at prayer, and would not let her hear, and she could not hear a good while.) Good hath one of those birds, the yellow-bird, and would have given me it, but I would not have it. And in prayer-time she stopped my ears, and would not let me hear. Q. What should you have done with it? A. Give it to the children, which yellow-bird hath been several times seen by the children. I saw Sarah Good have it on her hand when she came to her when Mr. Parris was at prayer. I saw the bird suck Good between the fore-finger and long-finger upon the right hand.”

Those statements relating to the use of the knife, apparently volunteered by Tituba and confirmed by the child, are quite suggestive. Assuming that there was present with them some powerful male spirit bent upon forceful action, and who, through Tituba and other impressibles, had obtained some palpable hold upon certain human forms and the affairs of external life, it was in his power to excite in the minds of any and all who had then been brought into rapport with himself, such ideas as those relating to the knife, and also to make the psychologized girl experience the sensation of being actually cut by it. Such would now be deemed an easy feat by any fair psychologist, either in the gross form or out of it, provided he had a favorable subject on whom to operate.

The same spirit, too, drawing elements from Mrs. Good, and using them, could make Tituba feel as though Mrs. Good was by her side and making her suddenly deaf in prayer-time, even though it was the male spirit himself who then closed her ears.

Evidences of mediumistic capabilities in either the afflicted or the afflicters are worthy of distinct observation, and therefore we draw attention to the statement that the yellow-bird “hath been several times seen by the children.” Therefore the sufferers were clairvoyants, as well as the accused.

“Q. Did you never practice witchcraft in your own country? A. No; never before now.”

That answer renders it probable that previous to the winter then passing she had never been conscious of the presence of spirits, or of conversations with or subjection to them. She, perhaps, reveals a lurking suspicion that her experiences of late might be witchcrafts. But her notions as to what constituted that might well, if not necessarily, be very different from those existing in the more unfolded and logical minds of her master and her examiners, who made the chief essence of it consist in a compact made with a Majestic and Malignant Devil—such a devil as would differ very widely in appearance from Tituba’s “man.” She freely described the unsought presence of a spirit-man with her on sundry occasions; also her talks with him, and forced service under him. This essentially was only disclosure of the fact that her own organism and temperaments were such and so conditioned that disembodied intelligences could sometimes be seen and heard by her, and could force her to be their tool. Her witchcraft was devoid of voluntary compact to serve an evil one; devoid of evil intent in its practice. If she confessed herself to be a witch, it was only a kindly and loving one, desiring to be truthful and good, and inflicting hurt only when forced to it. She confessed only to clairvoyance, clairaudience, and weakness of her own will-powers.

“Q. Did you see them do it now while you are examining (being examined)? A. No, I did not see them. But I saw them hurt at other times. I saw Good have a cat beside the yellow-bird which was with her.”

Obviously some contortions, antics, or sufferings which the afflicted girls, who were present at the examination, had just experienced or were then manifesting, led to the question, “Did you see them do it now?” Here again appears the assumption of the court that Tituba might be gifted with powers or faculties which would enable her to discern animate and designing workers who were invisible by external optics. Her inner sight was closed then, but at some other times had been open.

“Q. What hath Osburn got to go with her? A. A thing; I don’t know what it is. I can’t name it. I don’t know how it looks. She hath two of them. One of them hath wings, and two legs, and a head like a woman. The children saw the same but yesterday, which afterward turned into a woman. Q. What is the other thing that Goody Osburn hath? A. A thing all over hairy; all the face hairy, and a long nose, and I don’t know how to tell how the face looks; with two legs; it goeth upright, and is about two or three foot high, and goeth upright like a man; and last night it stood before the fire, in Mr. Parris’s hall.”

The obscurity of this description is fully paralleled by the prophet Ezekiel, who, in presenting the beings seen in the first of his “visions of God,” uses the following language, in chap. i.: “They had the likeness of a man, and every one had four faces, and every one had four wings; and their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like the color of burnished brass. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings; and their wings were joined one to another; and they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward; as for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.” This quotation from the Bible hints with much distinctness that inherent difficulties may beset any clairvoyant who undertakes to set forth in our language, which was formed for description of material objects, some things which are occasionally perceived by the spiritual senses. Where the prophet was so vague and mystical we may pardon the ignorant slave if she failed to be very lucid, and if one suspects her of attempting to put forth nothing but fiction, because she was so obscure, how can he consistently withhold similar suspicions in relation to the prophet?

We will pass to the children’s credit the fact that they also saw Osburn’s ungainly and hairy attendant.

“Q. Who was that appeared to Hubbard as she was going from Proctor’s? A. It was Sarah Good, and I saw her send the wolf to her.”

Facts are transpiring in the present age which indicate with much distinctness that a spirit can present the semblance of a spirit-beast or other spirit-object to the vision of many clairvoyants at the same time, and also that he can, if he so elect, psychologize simultaneously all clairvoyants with whom he is in rapport, and cause them all to believe that they see any beast or object which his mind merely conceives of with distinctness. Therefore sight of a wolf by the mediumistic Hubbard girl, and Tituba’s perception of the same proceeding from mediumistic Sarah Good, could all be produced by the mere volition of that “something like a man,” provided only that he was then in rapport with all of those three sensitive ones.

“Q. What clothes doth the man appear unto you in? A. Black clothes sometimes; sometimes serge coat of other color; a tall man with white hair, I think. Q. What apparel do the women wear? A. I don’t know what color. Q. What kind of clothes hath she? A. Black silk hood with white silk hood under it, with top-knots; which woman I know not, but have seen her in Boston when I lived there. Q. What clothes the little woman? A. Serge coat, with a white cap, as I think. (The children having fits at this very time, she was asked who hurt them. She answers, Goody Good; and the children affirmed the same. But Hubbard being taken in an extreme fit, after [ward] she (Tituba) was asked who hurt her (Hubbard), and she said she could not tell, but said they blinded her and would not let her see; and after that was once or twice taken dumb herself.”)

That account of the clothes described the usual costumes of the time. We are glad to hear her say, “A tall man, with white hair, I think.” That is her description of the “something like a man,” and “the man” who has been so demonstrative. A tall man with white hair, need not be a very frightful object, and we can readily conceive that such a mind as Tituba’s might be perfectly calm and self-possessed in his presence, and never imagine that abler minds might confound such a one with the devil. She never calls him the devil. The fact that she was made dumb two or three times, gives her case some resemblance to those of Ezekiel and Zacharias. Her ears, as before stated, had been stopped by Good, as she supposed, one evening during prayer-time. Thus we find her organs of sense subject to just such control as invisible intelligent operators exercised over prophetic or mediumistic ones of old, and such as spirits exercise over many mortal forms to-day. Her clairvoyance was obscured, perhaps, by “the man” when she was asked who was hurting the Hubbard girl, and replied that they blinded her now.

Second Examination, March 2, 1692.

“Q. What covenant did you make with that man that came to you? What did he tell you?”

The first of those two questions was the crucial one at a trial for witchcraft. Had she made a covenant with the devil, or any devotee of his? That was the main point to be determined. If she had, she was a witch, according to the prevalent creed; if she had not, she might be innocent of witchcraft. But seemingly the court could not wait for an answer, because, in the same breath, it asked, What did your visitant tell you?

“A. He tell me he God, and I must believe him and serve him six years, and he would give me many fine things. Q. How long ago was this? A. About six weeks and a little more; Friday night before Abigail was ill.”

That last answer is very instructive. It fixes the exact time when one of the children in Mr. Parris’s family was first attacked. For this second day’s examination was held on Wednesday, March 2. It will appear from the above and future answers that the specters first attacked the children on a Wednesday evening, just six weeks before this 2d of March. The man appeared to and talked with Tituba on the Friday evening before that Wednesday in January.

The testimony, therefore, takes us back to January 20th as the commencement of overt manifestation of spirit infliction of sufferings there. Five days further back, i. e., the evening of January 15, is apparently the date of “the man’s” first recognized appearance. Therefore, until better information is obtained, we shall regard that as the date of the primal advent of the genuine author of witchcraft at Salem Village, whom we deem to have been also its regulator through its heart-rending unfoldings.

“Q. What did he say you must do more? Did he say you must write anything? Did he offer you any paper? A. Yes, the next time he come to me; and showed me some fine things, something like creatures, a little bird something like green and white. Q. Did you promise him this when he first spake to you? Then what did you answer him? A. I then said this: I told him I could not believe him God. I told him I ask my master, and would have gone up, but he stopt me and would not let me. Q. What did you promise him? A. The first time I believe him God, and then he was glad. Q. What did he say to you then? What did he say you must do? A. Then he tell me they must meet together.”

There is some obscurity in this quotation, which raises the question whether the witness contradicts herself by stating that at her first interview she believed that her visitant was God himself (as John the Revelator did that a prophet returning from the spirit spheres and appearing to him was God), and her stating again that at the first interview she told him she could not believe that he was God, and proposed to go up and ask her master, Mr. Parris, what he thought about it, but was held back by her spirit-attendants from doing so. There is, we say, obscurity as to whether the account makes her apply both of these opposing statements to her conceptions of her visitor at the first interview with him, or whether it was not till a subsequent meeting that she doubted his Godship. As reported, her examiners are made quite as hard to understand and track as she is in her answers. But, upon a careful reading, we judge it fair and proper to conclude that her doubts concerning the character of her acquaintance were expressed as late as at the meeting on Wednesday, January 20, and not on the previous Friday.

“Q. When did he say you must meet together? A. He tell me Wednesday next, at my master’s house; and then we all [did] meet together, and that night I saw them all stand in the corner—all four of them—and the man stand behind me, and take hold of me, and make me stand still in the hall.”

We now must relinquish doubt as to the meetings at the parsonage, for here we have distinct historical mention of a circle, which met “at Mr. Parris’s house” for the purpose of practically manifesting the skill and powers, not of learners, but of an expert in the wonders of “necromancy, magic, and especially of Spiritualism.” This circle met, at five days’ notice, on the evening of January 20, 1692. A man, or “something like a man,” was at the head of it, and five females, three of them at least embodied ones, were his assistants, or rather were reservoirs from whence he drew forces with which to experiment upon two little mediumistic girls. If a club of women and girls sometimes met for such purposes as are alleged in foregoing citations,—and perhaps it did in a loose, irregular way,—we fancy that Tituba’s tutor was ever among them taking notes, scrutinizing their several properties, capabilities, and circumstances, and planning when and how to use them for most efficient accomplishment of his purposes. The fact that he was present as author and master spirit when the first act of the Salem Village tragedy was visibly manifested through the twitchings and contortions of two little girls, is distinctly shown by Tituba’s testimony. Therefore henceforth there can be neither historical nor philanthropic justice in imputing to the brains and wills of the little girls what a present and conscious clairvoyant witness imputes distinctly to one who looked “something like a man.” Give to him—whoever he was—give to him his just dues; also bestow upon the girls neither censure nor praise for the help which their organisms and temperaments necessarily afforded him. This meeting of apparitions, be it noted and remembered, took place immediately before the sickness of the children came on, and during its session, the children were pinched, and thus first became “afflicted ones.” On that Wednesday night “Abigail first became ill.”

“Q. Where was your master then? A. In the other room. Q. What time of night? A. A little before prayer-time. Q. What did this man say to you when he took hold of you? A. He say, Go into the other room and see the children, and do hurt to them and pinch them. And then I went in and would not hurt them a good while; I would not hurt Betty; I loved Betty; but they haul me, and make me pinch Betty, and the next Abigail; and then quickly went away altogether a[fter] I had pinch them. Q. Did you go into that room in your own person, and all the rest? A. Yes; and my master did not see us, for they would not let my master see.”

Mr. Parris and the children seem from the above to have been in the same apartment that evening, for Tituba states that he was “in the other room,” and her dictator said to her, “Go into the other room,” and hurt the children. That the master of the house was present with his daughter and niece then, may be indicated also in the statement that “they would not let my master see;” for this implies that they were in his presence, though invisible. If she went to the room in her physical form—which is not stated, and is not probable—though she did go there in her “own person,” the others went only as spirits or as apparitions; and they did not so enrobe or materialize themselves as to be visible by outward eyes, and therefore did not become visible to Mr. Parris—they “would not let” him see. The first infliction upon the children, therefore, was made in his very presence, but by invisible hands—spirit hands or apparitional hands—touching the spirit forms of the mediumistic little girls, and through their own inner forms reaching, paining, and convulsing their physical bodies. It is interesting to note that because Tituba “loved Betty,” she was able to resist the pressure upon her “a good while;” but her feeble powers were incompetent to oppose unyielding and effectual resistance to the strong will of the producer of painful experiences.

“Q. Did you go with the company? A. No. I staid, and the man staid with me. Q. What did he then to you? A. He tell me my master go to prayer, and he read in book, and he ask me what I remember: but don’t you remember anything.”This account fails to furnish any very conclusive evidence that either of the four other women was on that occasion consciously present with Tituba and the man; it need only indicate the probability that he drew properties from each of them, wherever located, whether in the Village, in Boston, or elsewhere, which enabled him to present their apparitions to Tituba as helpers, and to effect rapport with and get power over the children. When his immediate purpose had been accomplished, no one but the man could be seen by her. He perhaps left the female apparitions to dissolve when his further need of their properties ceased. There is no evidence that Good and Osburn were conscious of being present where Tituba saw them, and therefore the other two female forms may have been purely apparitional—mental fabrics of “the man.” But important points are clear. The man’s controlling will, and subjugated Tituba’s conscious self, were there.

“Q. Did he ask you no more but the first time to serve him? Or the second time? A. Yes, he ask me again if I serve him six years; and he come the next time and show me a book. Q. And when would he come then? A. The next Friday, and showed me a book in the daytime, betimes in the morning. Q. And what book did he bring, a great or little book? A. He did not show it me, nor would not, but had it in his pocket. Q. Did he not make you write your name? A. No, not yet, for my mistress called me into the other room. Q. What did he say you must do in that book? A. He said write and put my name to it. Q. Did you write? A. Yes, once, I made a mark in the book, and made it with red like blood. Q. Did he get it out of your body? A. He said he must get it out. The next time he come again, he gave me a pin tied in a stick to do it with; but he no let me blood with it as yet, but intended another time when he came again. Q. Did you see any other marks in his book? A. Yes, a great many; some marks red, some yellow; he opened his book, and a great many marks in it. Q. Did he tell you the names of them? A. Yes, of two; no more: Good and Osburn; and he say they made them marks in that book, and he showed them me. Q. How many marks do you think there was? A. Nine. Q. Did they write their names? A. They made marks. Goody Good said she made her mark, but Goody Osburn would not tell. She was cross to me. Q. When did Good tell you she set her hand to the book? A. The same day I came hither to prison. Q. Did you see the man that morning? A. Yes, a little in the morning, and he tell me the magistrates come up to examine me. Q. What did he say you must say? A. He tell me tell nothing; if I did, he would cut my head off.”

The questions relating to the book and signatures were based on, and made important by, then prevalent belief that one’s signature in the devil’s book proved the signing of a covenant to be henceforth his servant. Tituba’s statement that she had seen therein Sarah Good’s signature in her own blood, well might be then deemed strong evidence that Mrs. Good was a witch, and was guilty of witchcraft. But we doubt whether the witness had any conception of the fatal import of her statement. Her testimony that Goody Osburn was cross to her, while amusing, is also suggestive of the deep question whether even an apparition, produced by use of unconscious elements drawn from a human system, could or would be so permeated with the existing mental and emotional moods of the person from whom they were drawn as to cause those moods to be perceived and felt by those who might see, and receive influences from, the apparition. “The man” told her that the magistrates had come or were coming to examine her. She might have known this already, and might not. Be that as it may, on the morning of her examination A SPIRIT spoke to her. His counsel was, that she should say nothing. This advice seems wise. But it was not very “cunning” in her to repeat it, and make known its source “in presence of Authority.” Willing or not she was there constrained to speak out. Robert Calef, in “More Wonders of the Invisible World,” reports her as saying, “that her master did beat her and otherwise abuse her to make her confess and accuse (such as he called) her sister witches, and that whatsoever she said by way of confessing, or accusing others, was the effect of such usage.”

“Q. Tell us true; how many women do you use to come when you ride abroad? A. Four of them; these two, Osburn and Good, and those two strangers. Q. You say there was nine. Did he tell you who they were? A. No, he no let me see, but he tell me I should see them the next time. Q. What sights did you see? A. I see a man, a dog, a hog, and two cats, a black and red, and the strange monster was Osburn’s that I mentioned before; this was the hairy imp. The man would give it to me, but I would not have it. Q. Did he show you in the book which was Osburn’s and which was Good’s mark? A. Yes, I see their marks. Q. But did he tell you the names of the other? A. No, sir. Q. And what did he say to you when you made your mark? A. He said, Serve me; and always serve me. The man with the two women came from Boston. Q. How many times did you go to Boston? A. I was going and then came back again. I never was at Boston. Q. Who came back with you again? A. The man came back with me, and the women go away; I was not willing to go. Q. How far did you go—to what town? A. I never went to any town. I see no trees, no town. Q. Did he tell you where the nine lived? A. Yes; some in Boston and some here in this town, but he would not tell me who they were.”

We have now presented the full text of Tituba’s testimony as recorded by Corwin and printed by Drake. Severed from the leading and jumbled questions which drew it forth, and reduced to a simple narrative, her statement would in substance be nearly as follows:—

Something like a man came to me just as I was going to sleep the Friday night before Abigail was taken ill, six weeks and a little more ago, who then told me that he was God, that I must believe him, and that if I would serve him six years he would give me many fine things. He said there must be a meeting at my master’s house the next Wednesday, and on the evening of that day he and four women came there. Then I told him I could not believe that he was God, and proposed to go and ask Mr. Parris what he thought on that point; but the man held me back. They forced me against my will and my love for Betty to pinch the children; we did pinch them. That was the first night that Abigail was sick. Sometimes I saw the appearances of dogs, cats, birds, hogs, wolves, and a nondescript animal, some of whom spoke to me, and talked like the man. Yesterday, when I was in the lean-to chamber, I saw a thing like a man,—the same that I had seen before,—who asked me to serve him; and last night, when I was washing the room, the man and the four women all came again, and wanted me to hurt the children; and we all went up to Mr. Thomas Putnam’s, and hurt Ann, and cut her with a knife. I went to the Hubbard girl once, and pinched her, and once the man brought her over to me, and I pinched her; but I was not there when they say I was, though it may be that the man sent my apparition over there then without my knowing it. I once saw what looked like a wolf go out from Mrs. Good and run to the Hubbard girl. How we travel I don’t know; we go up in the air, and we are instantly at the place we intend to go to; we see no trees, no roads. The man brings cats or other things to me, and I pinch them; and by doing so the girls are pinched. Sometimes I can see these things for a while, and then instantly become blind to them. This morning the man came and told me the magistrates had come to examine me.

Such are the principal points in Tituba’s account of the origin and author of the disturbance or “amazing feats” at Mr. Parris’s house. In the main, they are plain, direct, and seemingly true. They teach as clearly as words ever taught anything, that “something like a man”—“a tall man with white hair,” dressed in “serge coat”—came and forced Tituba to pinch the children at the very time when one of them was first taken sick. They teach also that the same man appeared to Tituba several times, and was with her on the day of her examination. The spiritual source of the first physical manifestations which generated the great troubles at Salem Village is thus set forth with such clearness as will command credence in future ages, even if it shall fail to do so in this Sadducean generation.

As before stated, another record of Tituba’s testimony was made by Ezekiel Cheever, which is much less ample and particular than the one above presented. It omits entirely several very instructive and important parts—especially those which make known Tituba’s earlier interviews with “the man;” those which fix the exact time when he first came to her; the exact time when Abigail was taken ill; and, more important still, those parts which describe the assemblage of spirits at Mr. Parris’s house, and their deliberate inflictions of pains upon the children at the very time when their disordered conditions came upon them.

Upham, by using Cheever’s instead of the other account, failed to adduce several vastly important historic facts; the special facts which are essential to a fair presentation of the origin and nature of Salem witchcraft. He nowhere recognizes the probably acute intellect, strong powers, persistent action, and inspiring presence of the tall man with white hair and in serge coat. Omitting these, he has but given us Hamlet with Hamlet left out. And this, too, not in ignorance, for he had seen Corwin’s manuscript, which made clearly manifest the presence and doings of one spirit-personage especially, and taught many other facts that were not reconcilable with his theory.The tall man with white hair who visited Tituba on the evening of January 15, 1692, has such obvious and important connection with, and influence over, all the ostensible actors in the scenes which former witchcraft historians have depicted, as may revolutionize their theories, and teach the world that those expounders never traced their subject down to its genuine base; that they built, partly at least, upon the sands of either ignorance or misconception of the nature and actual source of what they discussed.

There are some important differences in the two records of Tituba’s testimony, even where the words and facts must have been the same. The following parallel passages present quite differing reports of what she said concerning her own knowledge of the devil:—

Thus Cheever makes her say that “the devil” came to her and bade her serve him, while Corwin, reporting the same part of the examination makes her say that “the devil” never told her anything. Further on, Corwin makes her say, “A thing like a man told me serve him.” Cheever says the devil told her thus. Tituba herself, and all the clairvoyants of that age, preserved a distinction between the devil and the personages they saw, heard, and talked with. But the recorders of their testimony, failing to observe this distinction, often perverted the evidence. A comparison of the two records throughout suggests the probability that Corwin, who is most minute, gives the questions and answers in their original order and sequences much more nearly than does Cheever, whose record, when compared with the other, appears in some parts to be summings-up of several minutes’ talks into a brief sentence or two, and also gives evidence of his taking it as obvious fact, that Tituba’s “thing like a man” was the veritable devil. This is probable, because his minutes make her say “the devil come to me, and bid me serve him,” at a point in the examination where, according to Corwin, she said the devil “tells me nothing.” Thus the appearance is, that Cheever carried back in time words which she subsequently applied to her “thing like a man,” and on his own authority—not hers—applied them to “the devil.” In Corwin’s account, her conception of the separate individualities of “the devil” and her “thing like a man” reveals itself clearly, and is nowhere contravened. But Cheever, almost at the commencement of his record, and at a point where she, according to Corwin, said the devil told her nothing, reports her as then applying to the devil what she a few minutes or hours afterward applied to her “thing like a man.” According to the more full and the more trustworthy record, she at no time confessed to any interview with “The Devil,” though she did freely to many conversations with “the man.” These facts are important, very interesting, and instructive. As we interpret them now, they indicate that Tituba never confessed to any intercommunings with the devil, never charged Mrs. Good, Mrs. Osburn, or any one else with being familiar with his Sable Majesty, but only with “a tall man, with white hair,” wearing a “serge coat.”

The court before whom she was questioned, and the people around, generally, no doubt, deemed her “thing like a man” to be the veritable devil, as Cheever did. But the more exact recorder of her words furnishes good grounds for belief that Tituba herself conceived otherwise. She who was gifted with faculties which let her see, hear, and feel the actors, apprehended that one of them at least was a disembodied human spirit; while the spiritually blind, but physically and logically keen-eyed ones around her, wrongfully inferred the presence of their Malignant and Mighty Devil with her.

Some dates fixed by this witness in Corwin’s account, and entirely omitted in Cheever’s, are interesting and somewhat important. We learn what, so far as we know, escaped the notice of all former searchers, that it was on Friday, January 15, just as she was going to sleep, that “one like a man” came to her and appointed a meeting there at Mr. Parris’s house, to take place on the next Wednesday evening. Accordingly, on Wednesday evening, January 20, “the man” and four women came, and then designedly and deliberately pushed Tituba on, and made her pinch the daughter and niece of Mr. Parris; and on that very evening, Abigail, at least, if not Betty also, “was first taken ill.” Here is an important and significant coincidence. Just at the time when the illness was developed, spirits, in compliance with a previous arrangement, were there present at work seeking to produce just such a result as was manifested. Did they, or did other agencies, produce the mysterious disorders which seemed to devil-dreading beholders like diabolical obsessions? In view of all the facts, it is plain that a spirit or spirits caused the children to suffer.

By failing to present the above points, which, though lacking in the account that he copied and followed, yet came under his eye, Upham clearly failed to use some very important historic facts which are essential to a fair presentation of both the time at which, and the agents through whom, Salem witchcraft had its origin, and consequently to a fair presentation of its nature. But those facts strenuously conflict with his theory that embodied girls and women were the designers and perpetrators of that great and terrific manifestation of destructive forces. How strong the chains of a pet theory! How blinding the cataracts of long-cherished conclusions!

If there exists in the world’s annals more distinct testimony that a particular individual was the deliberate and intentional producer of acts which generated suffering, than Tituba gave that the “thing like a man,” which came to her once “when she was about going to sleep,” once “in the lean-to chamber,” once “when she was washing the room,” and who, on Friday night, appointed a place for meeting the next Wednesday night, and, with assistants, kept his appointment, and then and there, as he had previously announced his purpose to do, severely “hurt the children”—if there ever was recorded testimony which more distinctly designated a particular being as the principal in planning and enacting any scheme than is this from Tituba, by which she designates over and over again “a tall man with white hair,” wearing “black clothes sometimes, and sometimes serge coat of other color,” as the chief executor of the strange and momentous development of illnesses in the family of Mr. Parris, I know not where that clearer testimony is recorded. He who ignored several very significant parts of what Tituba said, rejected corner-stones which are essential to the foundation of a genuinely philosophical disclosure of the source and consequent nature of the mysteries he attempted to explain. Tituba has been described by Upham as “indicating, in most respects, a mind at the lowest level of general intelligence,” so that any one must be more rash than prudent who will impute to her ability to fabricate a series of facts, all of which seem to be natural and probable in the province of psychology.

Mr. Parris informs us that the strange sicknesses existed in his family during several weeks before he or others had any suspicion that they might be of diabolical origin. Tituba dates their commencement on the evening of January 20, just six weeks before her examination. Therefore Mr. Parris’s “several weeks” may have been five at least, during which he and his wife and their physician and friends probably studied symptoms, administered and watched the action of medicines, and cared for the children in every way, with as much freedom from delusion or bewildering excitement, as they could have done in any other equal portion of their lives. Such medical skill as then existed there, obviously had and used a very considerable period of time, not less than four or five weeks, in which to do its best, and yet was baffled. Its best was unavailing. We to-day perceive sufficient cause of its failure. It was contending against a special spirit infliction, the authors of which could either counteract, intensify, or nullify at their pleasure, the normal action of any common medicines or nursings. Parents, physician, and nurses no doubt witnessed from day to day such anomalous and changeful manifestations, sequent upon the administration of “physic,” as confounded their judgments, and made them at last suspect “an evil hand.” Tituba knew the cause of the illnesses, but probably lacked power to see and appreciate the continuous connection of that cause with the long series of its effects. Had she divulged her knowledge, what heed would have been given to the word of the ignorant slave? What beatings might she not well fear if she confessed to any dealings with invisible beings? No wonder that she kept her knowledge to herself, till fear of her master’s cane influenced her to disclose the facts to the magistrates.

Small as Tituba’s mental capacities were, she had some unusual susceptibilities, which permitted, or rather obliged, her to possess more knowledge of the origin and progress, and also of the nature and of the active producer, of the distressing ailments and “amazing feats” in her master’s family, than did master, mistress, physician, and magistrates combined. They saw—if it can be said that they saw at all—they saw only through thick, coarse, and blurred glasses, very dimly; while she, at times, clearly saw living actors face to face. From her we get the testimony of a witness who learned directly through her own senses what she stated; her testimony gives forth the ring of unflawed truth, and lifts a vail off from long-hidden mysteries.

Hutchinson, Upham, and Drake each sought to make it apparent that mundane roguishness, trickery, and malice, operating amid public credulity and infatuation, prompted and enabled frail girls and women to produce the “amazing feats,” marvelous convulsions, and all the many other woeful outworkings of witchcraft. Having been either unobservant of, or having ignored, the plain historic fact seen over and over again in Tituba’s testimony, that certain other intelligences than girls, that minds which were freed more or less fully and permanently from the hamperings of flesh, actually started the first display of witchcraft pinchings, fits, and convulsions at Salem Village, those historians wrongfully charged girls and women, whose bodies were then the subjects and tools of other intelligences, with being the feigners of maladies and the producers of acts which an eye-witness and reluctant participator distinctly declares were manifested in obedience to a will or wills not their own. Such oversight, or such discarding of facts, whichever it may have been, caused those writers to so restrict their stores of intelligent agents having more or less access to and power over man, as to put outside of their own reach and vision the actual producers of witchcraft phenomena. This self-imposed or self-retained restriction forced upon them necessity for efforts to show that mere children possessed gigantic physical and mental powers and brains which concocted and executed schemes that shook to their very foundations the strong fabrics of church and state—yes, forced them to ascribe mighty public agitations to insignificant operators.

Tituba, on the other hand, by a simple statement of what her own interior self saw, heard, felt, and did,—by a statement of what she actually knew,—designated the genuine and the obviously competent authors of witchcraft marvels, and explained their advent rationally. She, therefore, by far—very far—outranks each and all of those historians as a competent and authoritative expounder of the authorship, origin, and nature of Salem Witchcraft. Her “something like a man”—her tall white-haired man in serge coat—was its author. That man was a spirit, and his works were Spiritualism of some quality. Opposition revealed his possession of mighty force. And, whatever his motive, the result of his scheme was the death of witchcraft throughout Christendom, and consequent wide emancipation from mental slavery.

Some statements made and published by Robert Calef not long subsequent to 1692, wear on their surface the semblance of impeachments, or at least of questionings of the value of Tituba’s testimony. He says, “The first complained of was the said Indian woman named Tituba; she confessed the devil urged her to sign a book, which he presented to her, and also to work mischief to the children,” &c. We fail to find in Corwin’s report anything like a confession of any such things; she there states distinctly that The Devil tells her nothing, and also that the book was offered to her, and that the urgings to hurt the children were made to her by “something like a man”—by “the man.” She had no idea that the devil was her visitant, and never confessed that he tempted her.

Calef goes on and says, “She was afterward committed to prison, and lay there till sold for her fees. The account she since gives of it is, that her master did beat her and otherwise abuse her to make her confess and accuse (such as he called) her sister witches; and that whatsoever she said by way of confessing, or accusing others, was the effect of such usage.” This is credible, and is probably true. Such proceedings on the part of Mr. Parris are not inconsistent with the character which he bears. Tituba’s other master, the white-haired man, had charged her “to say nothing;” she perhaps, therefore, was in fact induced to utter “whatsoever she said by way of confessing or accusing others,” by beatings she received from her visible master. But what did she say by way of confessing or accusing? Nothing, really. She merely stated facts known to her; and such statement should not be misnamed either confession or accusation.

Corwin’s record of that slave’s testimony excites an apprehension—yes, generates belief—that Calef unconsciously made misleading statement when he wrote that “she confessed the devil urged her to sign a book.” We have met with no indication that she ever made what should be called confession. We repeat, that she quite fully narrated that she had seen, held conversation with, and been forced to obey, a white-haired man, and also that the women Good and Osburn were at times her companion operators when the Man was present. That frank statement of facts constituted her only confession, so far as we perceive. Had this been made by an intelligent witness who comprehended how the public mind would interpret it, there might be plausible reason for saying that she or he “confessed.” But with Tituba it was a simple statement of the truth.

We suspect that Calef, under the prevalent habit of his day, unwittingly wrote devil where Tituba, according to Corwin, said “the man.” If he followed Cheever’s report of the trial, he seemed to have authority for doing so. That Tituba regarded the devil and “the tall man” as two distinct individuals is very obvious. When questioned, she admitted that the devil might hurt the children for aught she knew, but she had never seen him, nor had he ever told her anything. She had no acquaintance with that personage. While the questions related to his doings she could give no information; but as soon as opportunity was given her to introduce her “tall man” she was ready to speak of him freely and instructively. The people around her, not interiorly illumined, applied the name devil to any disembodied intelligence that acted upon, or whose power became manifest to, their external senses; not so did either Tituba or any of her clairvoyant sister sufferers or sister accusers either. Throughout the whole of her two days’ rigid examination she persistently called her strange visitant “the man.” And it is a significant fact that all the mediumistic ones then, both accusers and accused, escaped ever falling into the prevalent habit of accusing The Devil. Other agents met their vision.

Fear of Mr. Parris may have forced Tituba to tell her true tale, which but for him she might have withheld. But is there probability either that he dictated any part of her testimony, or that she fabricated anything? We see none. The fair and just presumption is, that though forced to speak, she simply described what she had seen, and narrated what she had experienced. The apparent promptness, directness, and general consistency of her answers, strongly favor that presumption. In her judgment, as in ours, what she said was no confession of familiarity with the devil, for she disclaimed any knowledge of him; and therefore she made no confession of witchcraft as then defined, and no accusation of it against the other women.

Calef imputes to her a subsequent position which may be so construed as to indicate that she declined to stand by her previous statements. He says, “her master refused to pay her” jail “fees,” and thus liberate her from prison, “unless she would stand to what she had said.” In that quotation is involved all that we find in the older records which wears even a semblance of impeaching her testimony, or suggests any reason why we should distrust its intentional accuracy in any particular. The master did not pay the fees. She “lay in jail thirteen months, and was then sold to pay her prison charges.” (Drake. Annals, 190.) But what did her master require her to “stand to”? Calef says he beat her “to make her confess, and accuse [such as he called] her sister witches; and that whatsoever she did by way of confessing or accusing others, was the effect of such usage.” What she may have confessed to having done, or what she may have accused others of doing, at other times than when she was under examination, we do not know. Her statements then, as she then meant, and as we now understand them, fell far short of confessing familiarity with the devil, or of laying that crime to any others; therefore she neither made herself nor her companions witches. Still her master, no doubt, as did the recorder Ezekiel Cheever and the court, understood her as meaning devil when she said “the man,” though she herself did not so mean. Even Corwin, apparently, as judge, put the prevalent construction upon her words, though his fidelity as a recorder caused him to write “the man” when she said “the man.” This general habit of understanding devil, when some other personage was both named and meant, enables us to see that there may have been subsequent dispute between her and her master as to her real meaning, and that he made it a condition for her liberation that she should put his construction upon what she had said, rather than her own. It is an open question whether she ever refused to stand by her own meaning, or the true meaning of her own words. Perhaps she did refuse to stand by construction which the faith and habit of the day led most minds to put upon her words unjustifiably; but we doubt whether she refused to stand by the literal and intended meaning of what she had said.

Poor Tituba! Because of your forced connection with a scheme and works which entirely baffled your comprehension, because of your forced disclosure of things you had witnessed and experienced behind the vail of flesh, your own body was imprisoned thirteen months, and two innocent women were doomed to death. Guileless and innocent, so far as connected with witchcraft, you was borne on by mighty forces to seem to act voluntarily, though in fact unwillingly and perforce, a prominent part in one of the most fearful scenes in human history. Man’s ignorance of spiritual agents and forces in your day, together with the prevalent hallucination devil-ward, made you a humble and pitiable martyr to simple truth-telling. Some seeds in your simple story now gathered from out the chaff that has covered them for nine-score years, may soon be scattered over New England soil, from which, we trust, you above, and men below, may gather wholesome fruits of justice and truth.