one else ever ventured to intermeddle with the “afflicted,” or have any connection, except as outside spectators, with the marvellous phenomena of “diabolical operations.”  It will be noticed, that, while Mr. Parris thus waved the sword of disciplinary vengeance against any who should dare to intrude upon the forbidden ground, he occupied it himself without disguise, and maintained his hold upon it.  He asserts the reality of the “amazing feats” practised by diabolical power in their midst, and enforces in the strongest language the then prevalent views and pending proceedings.

The operations of the week, including the solemn censure of Mary Sibley, had all worked favorably for the prosecutors and managers of the business.  The magistrates, ministers, and whole body of the people, had become committed; the accusing girls had proved themselves apt and competent to their work; the public reason was prostrated, and natural sensibility stunned.  All resisting forces were powerless, and all collateral dangers avoided and provided against.  The movement was fully in hand.  The next step was maturely considered, and, as we shall see, skilfully taken.

It is to be observed, that there was, at this time, a break in the regular government of Massachusetts.  In the spring of 1689, the people had risen, seized the royal governor, Sir Edmund Andros, and put him in prison.  They summoned their old charter governor, Simon Bradstreet, then living in Salem, eighty-seven years of age, to the chair of state; called the assistants of 1686 back to their seats, who provided for an election of representatives by the people of the towns; and the government thus created conducted affairs until the arrival of Sir William Phipps, in May, 1692, when Massachusetts ceased to be a colony, and was thenceforth, until 1774, a royal province.  During these three years, from May, 1689, to May, 1692, the government was based upon an uprising of the people.  It was a period of pure and absolute independence of the crown or parliament of England.  Although Bradstreet’s faculties were unimpaired and his spirit true and firm, his age prevented his doing much more than to give his loved and venerated name to the daring movement, and to the official service, of the people.  The executive functions were, for the most part, exercised by the deputy-governor, Thomas Danforth, who was a person of great ability and public spirit.  Unfortunately, at this time he was zealously in favor of the witchcraft prosecutions.  Bradstreet was throughout opposed to them.  Had time held off its hand, and his physical energies not been impaired, he would undoubtedly have resisted and prevented them.  Danforth, it is said by Brattle, came to disapprove of them finally:  but he began them by arrests in other towns, months before any thing of the kind was thought of in Salem Village; and he contributed, prominently, to give destructive and wide-spread power, in an early stage of its development, to the witchcraft delusion here.