a Service unto the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore I will venture to go God grant that his Behaviours may be in all things at all times according to these his Expressions While these things were doing having Intelligence of a French Man of War expected at St. John's he Dispatched away the Non-such-Frigat thither to intercept him nevertheless by the gross Negligence and perhaps Cowardise of the Captain who had lately come from England with Orders to take the Command of her instead of one who had been by Sir William a while before put in and one who had signalized himself by doing of notable Service for the King and Country in it the Frenchman arrived unladed and went away untouch'd The Governour was extreamly offended at this notorious Defici 〈…〉 y it cast him into a great Impatience to see the Nation so wretchedly served and he would himself have gâ—â—â— to Saint John's with a Resolution to Spoil that Harbour of Spoilers if he had not been taken off by being sent for home to Whitehall in the very midst of his Undertakings But the Treacherous Indians being poisoned with the French Enchantments and fâ—rnished with brave New-Coats and New Armâ— and all new Incentives to War by the Man of War newly come in they presently and perfidiously fell upon two English Towns and Butchered and Captived many of the Inhabitants and made a New War which the New-Englanders know not whether it will End until either Canada become an English Province or that State arrive wherein they shall beat Swords into Plough-shares and Spears into Pruning-books And no doubt the taking off Sir William Phips was no small Encouragement unto the Indians in this Relapse into the Villanies and Massacres of a New Invasion upon the Country SECT 18. READER 'T is Time for us to view a little more to the Life the Picture of the Person the Actions of whose Life we have hitherto been looking upon Know then That for his Exteriour he was One Tall beyond the common set of Men and Thick as well as Tall and Strorg as well as Thick He was in all Respects exceedingly Robust and able to conquer such Difficulties of Diet and of Travel as would have kill'd most Men alive Nor did the Fat whereinto he grew very much in his later Years take away the Vigour of his Motions He was well-set and he was therewithal of a very Comely though a very Manly Countenance A Countenance where any true skill in Physiognomy would have read the Characters of a Generous Mind Wherefore passing to his Interiour the very first Thing which there offered it self unto Observation was a most incomparable Generosity And of this besides the innumerable Instances which he gave in his usual Hatred of Dirty or Little Tricks there was one Instance for which I must freely say I never saw Three Men in this World that Equal'd him this was His wonderfully Forgiving Spirit In the vast Variety of Business through which he Raced in his Time he met with many and mighty Injuries but although I have heard all that the most venemous Malice could ever Hiss at his Memory I never did hear unto this Hour that he did ever once deliberately Revenge an Injury Upon certain Affronts he has made sudden Returns that have shewed Choler enough and he has by Blow as well as by Word chastised Incivilities He was indeed sufficiently impatient of being put upon and when Base Men surprizing him at some Disadvantages for else few Men durst have done it have sometimes drawn upon him he has without the Wicked Madness of a Formal Duel made them feel that he knew how to Correct Fools Nevertheless he ever declined a Deliberate Revenge of a Wrong done unto him though few Men upon Earth have in their Vicissitudes been furnished with such frequent Opportunities of Revenge as Heaven brought into the Hands of this Gentleman Under great Provocations he would commonly say 'T is no Matter let them alone sometime or other they 'l see their Weakness and Rashness and have occasion for me to do them a Kindness And they shall then see I have quite forgotten all their Baseness Accordingly 't was remarkable to see it That few Men ever did him a Mischief but those Men afterwards had occasion for him to do Them a Kindness and he did the Kindness with as forgetful a Bravery as if the Mischief had never been done at all The Emperour Theodosius himself could not be readier to Forgive so worthily did he verifie that Observation Quo quisque est Major magis est Placabilis Ira Et Faciles Motus Mens Generosa capit In those Places of Power whereto the Providence of God by several Degrees raised him it still fell out so that before his Rise thereunto he underwent such Things as he counted very hard Abuses from those very Persons over whom the Divine Providence afterwards gave him the Ascendant By such Trials the Wisdom of Heaven still prepared him as David before him for successive Advancements and as he behaved himself with a marvellous Long-Juffering when he was Tried by such Mortifications thus when he came to be Advanced he convinced all Mankind that he had perfectly Buried all the old Offences in an Eternal Amnesty I was my Self an Ear-witness that one who was an Eye-witness of his Behaviour under such Probations of his Patience did long before his Arrival to that Honour say unto him Sir Forgive those that give you these Vexations and know that the God of Heaven intends before he has done with you to make you the Governour of New-England And when he did indeed become the Governour of New-England he shew'd that he still continued a Governour of himself in his Treating all that had formerly been in ill Terms with him with as much Favour and Freedom as if there had never happened the least Exasperations Though any Governour that Kens Hobbianism can easily contrive Ways enough to wreak a Spite where he owes it It was with some Christian Remark that he read the Pagan-story of the Renowned Fabius Maximus who being preferred unto the highest Office in the Common-Wealth did through a Zeal for his Country overcome the greatest Contempts that any Person of Quality could have received Minutius the Master of the Horse and the next Person in Dignity to himself did first privately Traduce him as one that was no Souldier and less Politician and he afterwards did both by Speeches and Letters prejudice not only the Army but also the Senate against him so that Minutius was now by an unpresidented Commission brought into an Equality with Fabius All this while the great Fabius did not throw up his Cares for the Common-Wealth but with a wondrous Equality of Mind endured equally the Malice of the Judges and the Fury of the Commons and when Minutius a while after was with all his Forces upon the Point of perishing by the victorious Arms of Hannibal this very Fabius not listening to the Dictates of Revenge
But the Angel then thus addressed him Vnderstand now the secret Judgments of God! The first man that entertained us did inordinately affect that Cup which I took from him 't was for the advantage of his interiour that I took it away and I gave it unto the impious man as the present reward of his good Works which is all the reward that he is like to have As for our Third Host the Servant which I slew had formed a bloody Design to have slain his Master but now you see I have saved the Life of the Master and prevented something of growth unto the eternal punishment of the Murderer As for our Fourth Host before his Child was Born unto him he was a very liberal and bountiful Person and he did abundance of good with his Estate but when he saw he was like to leave such an Heir he grew covetous wherefore the Soul of the Infant is Translated into Paradise but the occasion of sin is you see mercifully taken away from the Parent Thus General Phips though he had been used unto Diving in his time would say That the things which had befallen him in this Expedition were too deep to be Dived into SECT 12. FROM The time that General Pen made his Attempt upon Hispaniola with an Army that like the New English Forces against Canada miscarried after an Expectation of having Little to Do but to Possess and Plunder Even to this Day the General Disaster which hath attended almost every Attempt of the European Colones in America to make any Considerable Encroachments upon their Neighbours is a matter of some close Reflection But of the Disaster which now befell poor New-England in particular every one will easily Conclude none of the least Consequences to have been the Extreme Debts which that Country was now plunged into there being Forty Thousand pounds more or less now to be paid and not a Penny in the Treasury to pay it withal In this Extremity they presently found out an Expedient which may serve as an Example for any People in other parts of the World whose Distresses may call for a sudden supply of Money to carry them through any Important Expedition The General Assembly first pass'd an Act for the Levying of such a sum of Money as was wanted within such a Term of Time as was judged convenient and this Act was a Fund on which the Credit of such a Sum should be rendered passable among the people Hereupon there was appointed an Able and Faithful Committee of Gentlemen who printed from Copper-Plates a just Number of Bills and Florished Indented and Contrived them in such a manner as to make it Impossible to Counterfeit any of them without a Speedy Discovery of the Counterfeit besides which they were all Signed by the Hands of Three belonging to that Committee These Bills being of several Sums from Two-shillings to Ten pounds did confess the Massachuset-Colony to be Endebted unto the Person in whose Hands they were the Sums therein expressed and Provision was made that if any particular Bills were Irrecoverably Lost or Torn or Worn by the Owners they might be Recruited without any Damage to the whole in General The publick Debts to the Sailors and Souldiers now upon the point of Mutiny for Arma Tenenti Omnia dat qui Justa negat were in these Bills paid immediatly but that further Credit might be given thereunto it was Ordered that they should be Accepted by the Treasurer and all Officers that were Subordinate unto him in all publick Payments at Five per cent more than the Value expressed in them The People knowing that the Tax-Act would in the Space of Two years at Least fetch into the Treasury as much as all the Bills of Credit thence emitted would amount unto were willing to be furnished with Bills wherein 't was their Advantage to pay their Taxes rather than in any other Specie and so the Sailors and Souldiers put off their Bills instead of Money to those with whom they had any Dealings and they circulated through all the Hands in the Colony pretty Comfortably Had the Government been so Settled that there had not bin any Doubt of any Obstruction or Diversion to be given to the Prosecution of the Tax-Act by a Total Change of their affairs then Depending at White-Hall 'T is very certain that the Bills of Credit had been better than so much ready Silver yea the Invention had been of more Use to the New-Englanders than if all their Copper Mines had been opened or the Mountains of Peru had been Removed into these parts of America The Massachuset Bills of Credit had been like the Bank-Bills of Venice where though there were not perhaps a Ducat of Money in the Bank yet the Bills were esteemed more then Twenty per cent better than Money among the Body of the People in all their Dealings But many People being afraid that the Government would in Half a year be so Overturned as to Convert their Bills of Credit altogether into Wast-paper the Credit of them was thereby very much impaired and they who first received them could make them yield little more than fourteen or sixteen shillings in the Pound from whence there arose those Idle Suspicions in the Heads of many more Ignorant and Unthinking Folks concerning the Use thereof which to the Incredible Detriment of the Province are not wholly laid aside unto this Day However this Method of paying the Publick Debts did no less than save the Publick from a perfect Ruine and e're many Months were expired the Governour and Council had the pleasure of seeing the Treasurer burn before their Eyes many a Thousand Pounds Worth of the Bills which had passed about until they were again Returned unto the Treasury but before their being returned had happily and honestly without a farthing of silver Coin discharged the Debts for which they were intended But that which helped these Bills unto much of their Credit was the generous offer of many worthy men in Boston to run the Risque of selling their Goods reasonably for them and of these I think I may say that General Phips was in some sort the Leader who at the very Beginning meerly to Recommend the Credit of the Bills unto other Persons cheerfully laid down a Considerable Quantity of ready Money for an equivalent parcel of them And thus in a little time the Country waded through the Terrible Debts which it was fallen into In this though unhappy enough yet not so unhappy as in the Loss of men by which the Country was at the some Time consumed 'T is True there was very Little Blood spilt in the Attacque made upon Quebeck and there was a Great Hand of Heaven seen in it The Churches upon the Call of the Government not only observed a General Fast through the Colony for the Welfare of the Army sent unto Quebeck but also kept the Wheel of Prayer in a Continual motion by Repeated and Successive Agreements for Days of
Affairs with such Demurrages and such Disappointments as would have wholly Discouraged his Designs if his Patience had not bin Invincible He who can wait hath what he desireth This his Indefatigable Patience with a proportionable Diligence at length overcame the Difficulties that had bin thrown in his way and prevailing with the Duke of Albemarl and some other Persons of Quality to fit him out he set Sail for the Fishing-Ground which had bin so well baited half an Hundred Years before And as he had already discovered his Capacity for business in many considerable Actions he now added unto those Discoveries by not only providing all but also by inventing many of the Instruments necessary to the prosecution of his intended Fishery Captain Phips arriving with a Ship and a Tender at Port de la Plata made a stout Canoo of a stately Cotton Tree so large as to carry Eight or Ten Oars for the making of which Periaga as they call it he did with the same industry that he did every thing else employ his own Hand and Adse and endure no little hardship lying abroad in the Woods many Nights together This Periaga with the Tender being Anchored at a place convenient the Periaga kept Busking to and again but could only discover a Reef of Rising Shoals thereabouts called The Boilers which Rising to be within Two or Three Foot of the Surface of the Sea were yet so steep that a Ship striking on them would immediately sink down who could say how many Fathom into the Ocean Here they could get no other Pay for their long peeping among the Boilers but only such as caused them to think upon returning to their Captain with the bad News of their total Disappointment Nevertheless as they were upon the Return one of the Men looking over the side of the Periaga into the calm Water he spied a Sea Feather growing as he judged out of a Rock whereupon they bad one of their Indians to Dive and fetch this Feather that they might however carry home something with them and make at least as fair a Trinmph as Caligula's The Diver bringing up the Feather brought therewithal a surprizing story That he perceived a Number of Great Guns in the Watry World where he had found his Feather the Report of which Great Guns exceedingly astonished the whole Company and at once turned their Despondencies for their ill success into Assurances that they had now lit upon the True spot of Ground which they had been looking for and they were further confirmed in these Assurances when upon further Diving the Indian fetcht up a Sow as they stil'd it or a Lump of Silver worth perhaps Two or Three Hundred Pounds Upon this they prudently Buoy'd the place that they might readily find it again And they went back unto their Captain whom for some while they distressed with nothing but such Bad News as they formerly thought they must have carried him Nevertheless they so slipt in the Sow of Silver on one side under the Table where they were now sitting with the Captain and hearing him express his Resolutions to wait still patiently upon the Providence of God under these Disappointments that when he should look on one side he might see that Odd Thing before him At last he saw it seeing it he cryed out with some Agony Why What is this Whence comes this And then with changed Countenances they told him how and where they got it Then said he Thanks be to God! We are made And so away they went all hands to Work wherein they had this one further piece of Remarkable Prosperity that whereas if they had first fallen upon that part of the Spanish Wreck where the Pieces of Eight had been stowed in Bags among the Ballast they had seen a more laborious and less enriching time of it Now most happily they first fell upon that Room in the Wreck where the Bullion had been stored up and they so prospered in this New Fishery that in a little while they had without the loss of any Man's Life brought up Thirty Two Tuns of Silver for it was now come to measuring of Silver by Tuns Besides which one Adderly of Providence who had formerly been very helpful to Captain Phips in the Search of this Wreck did upon former Agreement meet him now with a little Vessel here and he with his few hands took up about Six Tuns of Silver whereof nevertheless he made so little use that in a year or two he died at Bermudas and as I have heard he ran Distracled some while before he died Thus did there once again come into the Light of the Sun a Treasure which had been half an Hundred Years groaning under the Waters And in this time there was grown upon the Plate a Crust like â—imestone to the thickness of several Inches which Crust being broken open by Irons contrived for that purpose they knockt out whole Bushels of rusty Pieces of Eight which were grown thereinto Besides that incredible Treasure of Plate in various forms thus fetch'd up from seven or eight Fathom under Water there were vast Riches of Gold and Pearls and Jewels which they also lit upon and indeed for a more Comprehensive Invoice I must but summarily say All that a Spanish Frigate uses to be enricht withal Thus did they continue Fishing till their Provisions failing them 't was time to be gone but before they went Captain Phips caused Adderly and his Folk to swear That they would none of them Discover the place of the Wreck or come to the Place any more till the next Year when he expected again to be there himself And it was also Remarkable that though the Sows came up still so fast that on the very last Day of their being there they took up Twenty yet it was afterwards found that they had in a manner wholly cleared that Room of the Ship where those Massy things were Stowed But there was one extraordinary Distress which Captain Phips now found himself plunged into For his Men were come out with him upon Seamens Wages at so much per Month and when they saw such vast Litters of Silver Sows and Pigs as they call them come on Board them at the Captains Call they knew not how to bear it that they should not share all among themselves and be gone to lead a short life and a merry in a Climate where the Arrest of those that had hired them should not reach them In this terrible Distress he made his Vows unto Almighty God that if the Lord would carry him safe home to England with what he had now given him to suck of the abundance of the Seas and of the Treasures hid in the Sands he would for ever Devote himself unto the Interests of the Lord Jesus Christ and of his People especially in the Country which he did himself Originally belong unto And he then used all the obliging Arts imaginable to make his Men true unto him
besides themselves Wherefore though by an Act they made stealing to be so Criminal that Several did Run the Gantlet for it yet they were not far from being driven after all to make One Degree and Instance of it Capital There was a wicked Irishman among them who had such a Voracious Devil in him that after divers Burglaries upon the Store-house committed by him at last he stole and Eat with such a Pamphagous Fury as to Cram himself with no less than Eighteen Biskets at one stolen meal and he was fain to have his Belly strok'd and Bath'd before the Fire lest he should otherwise have burst This Amazing and indeed murderous Villany of the Irishman brought them all to their Wit 's Ends how to defend themselves from the Ruine therein threatned unto them and whatever methods were proposed it was feared that there could be no stop given to his Furacious Exorbitancies any Way but One He could not be past Stealing unless he were past Eating too Some think therefore they might have Sentenced the Wretch to Dye and after they had been at pains upon Christian and Spiritual Accounts to prepare him for it have executed the Sentence by shooting him to Death concluding matters come to that pass that if they had not shot him he must have Starved them unavoidably Such an Action if it were done will doubtless meet with no harder a Censure than that of the seven English men who being in a Boat carried off to Sea from St. Christopher's with but one Days Provision aboard for Seventeen Singled out some of their Number by Lot and slew them and Eat them for which when they were afterwards accused of Murder the Court in consideration of the inevitable Necessity acquitted them Truly the inevitable necessity of Starving without such an Action sufficiently grievous to them all will very much plead for what was done whatever it were by these poor Antecostians And starved indeed they must have been for all this if they had not Contrived and Performed a very desperate Adventure which now remains to be Related There was a very diminutive kind of Boat belonging to their Brigantine which they recovered out of the Wreck and cutting this Boat in Two they made a shift with certain odd Materials preserved among them to lengthen it so far that they could therein form a little Cuddy where Two or Three Men might be stowed and they set up a little Mast whereto they fastned a little Sail and accommodated it with some other little circumstances according to their present poor Capacity On the Twenty Fifth of March Five of the Company Shipped themselves upon this Doughty Fly-Boat intending if it were possible to carry unto Boston the Tidings of their woful Plight upon Antecosta and by help from their Friends there to return with seasonable succours for the rest They had not Sail'd long before they were Hemm'd in by prodigious Cakes of Ice whereby their Boat sometimes was horribly wounded and it was a Miracle that it was not Crush'd into a Thousand pieces if indeed a thousand pieces could have been Splintred out of so minute a Cock-Boat They kept labouring and fearfully Weather-beaten among enormous Rands of Ice which would ever now and then rub formidably upon them and were enough to have broken the Ribs of the strongest Frigat that ever â—ut the Seas and yet the signal Hand of Heaven so preserved this petty Boat that by the Eleventh of April they had got a quarter of their way and came to an Anchor under Cape St. Lawrence having seen Land but once before and that about seven Leagues off ever since their first setting out and yet having seen the open and Ocean Sea not so much as once in all this while for the Ice that still encompassed them For their support in this Time the little Provisions they brought with them would not have kept them alive only they killed Seale upon the Ice and they melted the upper pare of the Ice for Drink but fierce wild ugly Sea-Horses would often so approach them upon the Ice that the fear of being devoured by them was not the least of their Exercises The Day following they weighed Anchor betimes in the Morning but the Norwest Winds persecuted them with the raised and raging Waves of the Sea which almost continually poured into them and monstrous Islands of Ice that seemed almost as big as Antecosta it self would ever now and then come athwart them In such a Sea they lived by the special assistance of God until by the thirteenth of April they got into an Island of Land where they made a Fire and killed some Fowl and some Seal and found some Goose-Eggs and supplied themselves with what Billets of Wood were necessary and carriageable for them and there they stayed until the seventeenth Here their Boat lying near a Rock a great Sea hove it upon the Rock so that it was upon the very point of oversetting which if it had she had bin utterly disabled for any further service and they must have called that Harbour by the Name which I think one a little more Northward bears The Cape without Hope There they must have ended their weary days But here the good Hand of God again interposed for them they got her off and though they lost their Compass in this Hurry they sufficiently Repaired another defective one that they had aboard Sailing from thence by the Twenty Fourth of April they made Cape Brittoon when a thick Fog threw them into a new Perplexity until they were safely gotten into the Bay of Islands where they again Wooded and Watred and killed a few Fowl and catched some Fish and began to reckon themselves as good as half way home They reached Cape Sables by the Third of May but by the fifth all their Provision was again spent and they were out of sight of Land nor had they any prospect of catching any thing that lives in the Atlantick which while they were lamenting one unto another a stout Halibut comes up to the top of the Water by their side whereupon they threw out the Fishing-Line and the Fish took the Hook but he proved so heavy that it required the help of several Hands to hale him in and a thankful Supper they made on 't By the seventh of May seeing no Land but having once more spent all their Provision they were grown almost wholly hopeless of Deliverance but then a Fishing Shallop of Cape Ann came up with them fifteen Leagues to the Eastward of that Cape And yet before they got in they had so Tempestuous a Night that they much feared perishing upon the Rocks after all But God carried them into Boston Harbour the Ninth of May unto the great surprise of their Friends that were in Mourning for them And there furnishing themselves with a Vessel fit for their Undertaking they took a Course in a few Weeks more to fetch home their Brethren that they left behind them at Antecosta But
a Country Devoted unto the Worship and Service of the Lord JESVS CHRIST above the Rest of the World He signalized his Vengeance against these wickednesses with such extraordinary Dispensations as have not been often seen in others Places The Devils which had been so play'd withal and it may be by some few Criminals more Explicitely engaged and imployed now broke in upon the Country after as aftonishing a manner as was ever heard of Some scores of People first about Salem the Centre and first Born of all the Towns in the Colony and afterwards in several other Places were arrested with many Praternatural Vexations upon their Bodies and a variety of cruel Torments which were evidently inflicted from the Daemons of the Invisible World The People that were infected and infested with such Daemons in a few Days Time arrived unto such a Resining Alteration upon their Eyes that they could see their Tormentors they saw a Devil of a little Stature and of a Tawny Colour attended still with Spectres that appeared in more Humane Circumstances These Tormentors tendred unto the Afflicted a Book requiring them to Sign it or to Touch it at least in token of their consenting to be Listed in the Service of the Devil which they refusing to do the Spectres under the command of that Blackman as they called him would apply themselves to Torture them with prodigious Molestations The afflicted Wretches were horribly Distorted and Convulsed they were Pinched Black and Blew Pins would be run every where in their Flesh they would be scalded until they had Blisters raised on them and a thousand other things before Hundreds of Witnesses were done unto them evidently Praeternatural For if it were Praeternatural to keep a rigid Fast for Nine yea for Fifteen Days together or if it were Praeternatural to have ones Hands ty'd close together with a Rope to be plainly seen and then by unseen Hands presently pull'd up a great way from the Earth before a croud of People Such Praeternatural Things were endured by them But of all the Praeternatural Things which befel these People there were none more unaccountable than those wherein the praestigious Daemons would ever now and then cover the most Corporeal Things in the World with a Fascinating Mist of Invisibility As now A Person was cruelly assaulted by a Spectre that she said run at her with a Spindle though no Body else in the Room could see either the Spectre or the Spindle At last in her Agonies giving a snatch at the Spectre she pulled the Spindle away and it was no sooner got into her Hand but the other Folks then present beheld that it was indeed a real proper Iron Spindle which when they locked up very safe it was nevertheless by the Daemons taken away to do farther Mischief Again A Person was haunted by a most abusive Spectre which came to her she said with a Sheet about her though seen to none but her self After she had undergone a deal of Teaze from the Annoyance of the Spectre she gave a violent snatch at the Sheet that was upon it where-from she tore a Corner which in her Hand immediately was beheld by all that were present a palpable Corner of a Sheet And her Father which was now holding of her catch'd that he might keep what his Daughter had so strangely siezed but the Spectre had like to have wrung his Hand off by endeavouring to wrest it from him However he still held it and several times this odd Accident was renewed in the Family There wanted not the Oaths of good credible People to these particulars Also It is well known that these wicked Spectres did proceed so far as to steal several Quantities of Money from divers People part of which Individual Money was dropt sometimes out of the Air before sufficient Spectators into the Hands of the Afflicted while the Spectres were urging them to subscribe their Covenant with Death Moreover Poisons to the standers-by wholly Invisible were sometimes forced upon the Afflicted which when they have with much Reluctancy swallowed they have swoln presently so that the common Medicines for Poisons have been found necessary to relieve them Yea sometimes the Spectres in the struggles have so dropt the Poisons that the Standers by have smelt them and view'd them and beheld the Pillows of the miserable stained with them Yet more the miserable have complained bitterly of burning Rags run into their forceably distended Mouths and though no Body could see any such Clothes or indeed any Fires in the Chambers yet presently the scalds were seen plainly by every Body on the Mouths of the Complainers and not only the Smell but the Smoke of the Burning sensibly fill'd the Chambers Once more the miserable exclaimed extreamly of Branding Irons heating at the Fire on the Hearth to mark them now though the standers-by could see no Irons yet they could see distinctly the Print of them in the Ashes and smell them too as they were carried by the not-seen Furies unto the Poor Creatures for whom they were intended and those Poor Creatures were thereupon so stigmatized with them that they will bear the Marks of them to their Dying Day Nor are these the Tenth Part of the Prodigies that fell out among the Inhabitants of New-England Flashy People may Burlesque these Things but when Hundreds of the most sober People in a Country where they have as much Mother-Wit certainly as the rest of Mankind know them to be True nothing but the absurd and froward Spirit of Sadducism can Question them I have not yet mentioned so much as one Thing that will not be justified if it be required by the Oaths of more considerate Persons than any that can ridicule these odd Phaenomena But the worst part of this astonishing Tragedy is yet behind wherein Sir William Phips at last being dropt as it were from the Machin of Heaven was an Instrument of casing the Distresses of the Land now so darkned by the Wrath of the Lord of Hosts There were very worthy Men upon the spot where the assault from Hell was first made who apprehended themselves call'd from the God of Heaven to sift the business unto the bottom of it and indeed the continual Impressions which the out-cries and the havocks of the afflicted People that lived nigh unto them caused on their Minds gave no little Edge to this Apprehension The Persons were Men eminent for Wisdom and Virtue and they went about their enquiry into the matter as driven unto it by a Conscience of Duty to God and the World They did in the first Place take it for granted that there are Witches or wicked Children of Men who upon Covenanting with and Commissioning of Evil Spirits are attended by their Ministry to accomplish the Things desired of them To satisfie them in which Perswasion they had not only the Assertions of the Holy Scripture Assertions which the Witch-Advocates cannot evade without shifts too foolish for any Prudent or too profane for