puty &c. wrote back presently to Mr. Pincheon, that then he should proceed no further, but send back the Indians &c.1

At this court one Margaret Jones of Charlestown was indicted and found guilty of witchcraft, and hanged for it. The evidence against her was, 1. that she was found to have such a malignant touch, as many persons, (men, women and children,) whom she stroked or touched with any affection or displeasure or &c. were taken with deafness, or vomiting, or other violent pains or sickness, 2. she practising physick, and her medicines being such things as (by her own confession) were harmless, as aniseed, liquors &c. yet had extraordinary violent effects, 3. she would use to tell such as would not make use of her physick, that they would never be healed, and accordingly their diseases and hurts continued, with relapses against the ordinary course, and beyond the apprehension of all physicians and surgeons, 4. some things which she foretold came to pass accordingly; other things she could tell of (as secret speeches &c.) which she had no ordinary means to come to the knowledge of, 5. she had (upon search) an apparent teat in her secret parts as fresh as if it had been newly sucked, and after it had been scanned, upon a forced search, that was withered, and another began on the opposite side, 6. in the prison, in the clear day-light, there was seen in her arms, she sitting on the floor, and her clothes up &c. a little child, which ran from her into another room, and the officer following it, it was vanished. The like child was seen in two other places, to which she had relation; and one maid that saw it, fell sick upon it, and was cured by the said Margaret, who used means to be employed to that end. Her behaviour at her trial was very intemperate, lying notoriously, and railing upon the jury and witnesses &c. and in the like distemper she died. The same day and hour she was executed, there was a very great tempest at Connecticut, which blew down many trees2 &c.

4.] The wife of one Willip of Exeter was found in the river dead, her neck broken, her tongue black and swollen out of her mouth, and the blood settled in her face, the privy parts swollen &c. as if she had been much abused &c.

1 See Appendix P.

2 Perhaps this tempest, and several other of the pieces of evidence against the poor witch, are as strong proof of innocence as guilt. In Danforth's Almanack for this year, Mr. Farmer writes me, a note is set against 15 June: "Alice Jones was executed at Boston for witchcraft." The errour of the name is observable. But I am unable to find any thing in our records about the trial, except an order for a strict watch on her in prison, the good effect of which is observable in the text.

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A vessel of Connecticut being the last winter at Quorasoe, in the possession of the Dutch, found there a negro, who had lost his legs, and had been sent thither out of Holland to perform such service to the governour &c. as he was fit for (having been trained up to some learning in Holland.) This man had attained to some good savour of religion, so as he grew weary of the Dutch of the island, who were very debauched, (only one man he found some piety in,) and there being some Indians in the island, he acquainted himself with them, and having attained some skill in their language, he began to instruct them and their children in the knowledge of God &c. and the Lord so blessed his endeavours, as the Indians began to hearken to him, and yielded themselves to be taught at certain times which this negro appointed, This negro told the master of the English vessel, one Bull, a godly and discreet man, of all his proceedings, and what comfort he had in that one godly Dutchman, saying that he never was in his company but he found Jesus Christ warming him at the heart. He inquired of Bull about New England and our religion and churches, and asked if we were of those christians, who advanced the doctrine of merits &c. and much rejoiced when he heard the truth of our doctrine &c. and showed himself very desirous to see New England; and so he left him at that time.

28.] The Welcome, of Boston, about 300 tons, riding before Charlestown, having in her eighty horses and 120 tons of ballast, in calm weather, fell a rolling, and continued so about twelve hours, so as though they brought a great weight to the one side, yet she would heel to the other, and so deep as they feared her foundering. It was then the time of the county court at Boston, and the magistrates hearing of it, and withal that one Jones (the husband of the witch lately executed) had desired to have passage in her to Barbados, and could not have it without such payment &c. they sent the officer presently with a warrant to apprehend him, one of them saying that the ship would stand still as soon as he was in prison. And as the officer went, and was passing over the ferry, one said to him, you can tame men sometimes, can't you tame this ship. The officer answered, I have that here that (it may be) will tame her, and make her be quiet; and with that showed his warrant. And at the same instant, she began to stop and presently staid, and after he was put in prison, moved no more.1

1 Our fathers must not be charged with any partiality, I presume, in passing over what Mather would call the nefandous witchcraft of this man, though tes

There appeared over the harbour at New Haven, in the evening, the form of the keel of a ship with three masts, to which were suddenly added all the tackling and sails, and presently after, upon the top of the poop, a man standing with one hand akimbo under his left side, and in his right hand a sword stretched out towards the sea. Then from the side of the ship which was from the town arose a great smoke, which covered all the ship, and in that smoke she vanished away; but some saw her keel sink into the water. This was seen by many, men and women, and it continued about a quarter of an hour.1

timony to support it was apparent to the whole community in the diabolical motion of the ship. The acuteness, at least, of one of the judges, who foretold the security of the ship, as a necessary consequence of that precaution, before he who was refused passage in her was committed to prison, certainly entitled him to great influence in such a trial; but the escape of the husband undoubtedly was owing to a mistake in philosophy and law, that such powerful enchantments could be perpetrated only by female influence. Forty-four years later his sex would not have given him security, for so impudent was the devil then become by his success, as to make addresses sometimes even to men, though unhappily much more often to women.

1 Here is the first known relation of that atmospherical phenomenon, out of which the unhappy mourners of relatives lost in the ship near two years and a half before, possibly, in their gloomy and solitary state, worked up their imaginations to shape some application to the cause of their suffering, and which tradition and credulity certainly magnified to one of the most portentous meteors that was ever witnessed in a land of marvels. How could the date of an occurrence of so much interest, as the sailing of the New Haven bark, be brought down two years later than the truth? Probably by many minds the exact period was forgotten, before the strange illusion in the clouds had attracted attention. After this appearance, in the lapse of a very few years, the story of the apparition would be told more frequently, if not more impressively, than that of the unheard of shipwreck, which preceded it; and as the time of the meteorological splendour was probably marked, and this had become with the majority the principal event, though in frequent repetition connected with that as a cause, it became natural to bring cause and effect into greater propinquity. Few other subjects of conversation were so safe and interesting in that humble colony for many years; yet it was never, I believe, exhibited in full blown magnificence, till the happy eye of Mather having been blessed with a momentary vision, he kindly solicited from Reverend James Pierpont an imperishable representation. How precise was the relation at so distant a day, even of "the most credible, judicious and curious surviving observers of it," we can well judge without the aid of the author of the Magnalia or his correspondent. Pierpont was graduated at H. C. 1681, settled at New Haven in 1685. Hubbard, 322, says the ship, besides being ill built and very crank, was, "to increase the inconveniency thereof, ill laden, the lighter goods at the bottom; so that understanding men did even beforehand conclude in their deliberate thoughts a calamitous issue." It was not, then, quite so remarkable, perhaps, as Pierpont thought, that Mr. Davenport "in prayer with an observable emphasis used these words: Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these our friends in the bottom of the sea, they are thine: save them," especially since he also notes, "that the

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Divers letters passed between our governour and the Dutch governour about a meeting for reconciling the differences between our confederates of New Haven &c. and him. But Mr. Bradford, the governour of Plimouth, (being one of the two whom the Dutch governour desired to refer the differences unto,) being sent unto about it, came to Boston, and there excused himself, by bodily infirmities and other reasons, that he could not go to Hartford that summer, but promised (the Lord assisting) to prepare against the middle of the (4) next summer. So the governour (Mr. Hopkins being then also at Boston) despatched away letters presently to the Dutch governour to certify him thereof, who re

master (Lamberton) often said she would prove their grave." Hubbard, who wrote in 1682, and is copious enough about the disaster, has nothing about the air-drawn picture of it; and thus I am led to conclude that it was so justly told by our author, as to be thought by him, as our own judgment also makes it, too trivial an occurrence for such vast combinations to be united with.

The account of this air-ship has been so often republished from the Magnalia, that my regard for the people of New Haven induces me to request a perusal of that fictitious relation, which, though wonderfully amplified by their former clergyman, hardly contains any part of the modest particulars in our text: After perusal of the counterfeit, they must make a comparison with the original. Pierpont indeed has enriched the narrative with glowing appendages, as I. after failure of news of their ship from England in the following spring, 66 prayers, both public and private," of the distressed people, " that the Lord would (if it was his pleasure) let them hear what he had done with their dear friends, and prepare them with a suitable submission to his holy will" II. " a great thunder storm arose out of the northwest" III. "the ship sailing against the wind" IV. "the very children cried out, there's a brave ship" V. the pertinacity of the apparition, "crowding up as far as there usually was water sufficient for such a vessel, and so near some of the spectators, as that they imagined a man might hurl a stone on board her," VI. "her maintop seemed to be blown off, but left hanging in the shrouds, then her mizen top, then all her masting seemed blown away by the board." VII. the certainty and satisfaction enjoyed from this cloudy exhibition, "Mr. Davenport in public declared to this effect that God had condescended, for the quieting of their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many fervent prayers were made continually." It is very reasonable that the late version of his correspondent, worthy of Mather himself, who had our author's MS. in possession, having suppressed the actual circumstances as related at the time, should have furnished superiour beauty to the narrative fifty years later. The duration of the appearance, in our text, is doubled, at least, in the modern story, which makes it sail "against the wind for the space of half an hour."

Were we in these days as skilful in penetrating the counsels of heaven by the signs of the sky, it might be thought that this play of the clouds in June 1648 at New Haven had as much relation to the loss in November 1657 of Garret's ship, wherein was Mr. Davis, H. C. 1651, one of the best scholars of New Haven, as to the loss of Lamberton in January 1646. The circumstances of each were nearly similar. See Gookin in 1 Hist. Coll. I. 202, 3. Providence might have some purpose in foreshowing, but could be less distinctly reverenced in so uncertain a reflection.

turned answer soon after, that he was very sorry the meeting did not hold, and professed his earnest inclination to peace, and that he never had any thought of war, and desired that in the mean time all things might remain as they were, neither encroaching upon others' pretended limits, desiring withal that he might meet the commissioners of the colonies also to treat with them about the Indian trade, which was much abused &c.

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15. (6.) The synod met at Cambridge by adjournment from the (4) last. Mr. Allen of Dedham preached out of Acts 15,' a very godly, learned, and particular handling of near all the doctrines and applications concerning that subject, with a clear discovery and refutation of such errours, objections and scruples as had been raised about it by some young heads in the country.

It fell out, about the midst of his sermon, there came a snake into the scat, where many of the elders sate behind the preacher. It came in at the door where people stood thick upon the stairs. Divers of the elders shifted from it, but Mr. Thomson, one of the elders of Braintree, (a man of much faith,) trode upon the head of it, and so held it with his foot and staff with a small pair of grains, until it was killed. This being so remarkable, and nothing falling out but by divine providence, it is out of doubt, the Lord discovered somewhat of his mind in it. The serpent is the devil; the synod, the representative of the churches of Christ in New England. The devil had formerly and lately attempted their disturbance and dissolution; but their faith in the seed of the woman overcame him and crushed his head.

The synod went on comfortably, and intended only the framing

1 Probably the whole chapter, as it contains the admirable history of the council of Jerusalem, almost the only one since the foundation of our religion, whose result in matter of general doctrine and practice can be venerated, afforded the theme of the preacher. But if any particular part were more largely commented on, than another, considering the manner of our fathers' dissent from the church of England, then in its humiliation, we may fancy that with reverential tenderness the 10 and 11 verses were handled, though the chief application was undoubtedly to resist the presbyterian form of government of the churches, established by the Westminster assembly:

Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus we shall be saved, even as they.

This synod erected the famous Cambridge platform, which, with slight occasional departures, required by the lapse of time, continued the rule of our ecclesiastical polity until the constitution of the commonwealth in 1780, and is still of some influence in construction of difficult topics.