Today In Salem: A horse running at breakneck speed must be slowed before he is stopped. Likewise the witchcraft hysteria, which has been racing out of control for months now. It cannot be stopped, not yet. But it is being slowed.
Until now, the Sheriff has been busy, visiting the families of the convicted and confiscating cattle, crops, household goods, clothing, farm tools, and anything else he can touch or hold in his hands. Despite his ruthless enthusiasm, though, he’s only doing what English law tells him to. It’s one way they fund the jails.
Today, though, the Court puts a stop to it, returning to an old Colonial law that forbids confiscations. Never mind that tax revenue is far short of what it should be, or that the King will surely undo the change. For today, the Sheriff’s gleeful raids are at an end.
Meanwhile, the Court is also considering a letter that arrived yesterday from nine men, asking for the conditional release of their wives and daughters:
We beg your honours favour and pitty in affording what Relieff may be thought Convenient as for the matter of our Trouble: it is the distressed Condition of our wives and Relations in prison at Salem who are a Company of poore distressed creatures as full of inward grieff and Trouble as thay are able to bear … Besides that the wants of food Convenient: and the coldness of the winter season that is coming may soon dispatch such out of the way … besides that The exceeding great Charges and expences that we are at upon many accounts which if put all together our familys and estates will be brought to Ruin. … We do not petition to take them out of the hands of Justic but to Remain as prisoners under bond in their own familys wher thay may be more tenderly Cared for.
Finally, the Governor himself, concerned about his reputation, has defended himself in a letter to the King, and asks for advice, promising to stop all proceedings until he hears back:
When I first arrived I found this province miserably harrassed with a most Horrible witchcraft or Possession of Devills … There were many committed to prision upon suspicion of Whichcraft before my arrivall.
As soon as I came from fighting against their Majesties Enemyes and understood what danger some of their innocent subjects might be exposed to, if the evidence of the afflicted persons only did previle either to the committing or trying of any of them … I put a stop to the proceedings of the court and they are now stopt till their Majesties pleasure be known.