carried off the charter, and secreted it in a large hollow tree, fronting the house of the honourable Samuel Wyllys, then one of the magistrates of the colony. The people appeared all peaceable and orderly. The candles were officiously relighted, but the patent was gone, and no discovery could be made of it, or of the person who had conveyed it away. Sir Edmond assumed the government, and the records of the colony were closed in the following words:

"At a general court at Hartford, October 31st, 1687, his excellency sir Edmond Andros, knight, and captain general and governor of his majesty's territories and dominions in New England, by order from his majesty, James II. king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, the 31st of October 1687, took into his hands, the government of the colony of Connecticut, it being, by his majesty, annexed to Massachussetts and other colonies under his excellency's government."

NOTE....No. IV.

This frame of government is prefaced by a curious political disquisition, an extract from which it is presumed will not be unacceptable. "For particular forms and modes," says this uncommon legislator, "it will become me to say little; and comparatively I will say nothing. My reasons are:

"First, That the age is too nice and difficult for it; there being nothing the wits of men are more busy and divided upon. It is true, they seem to agree to the end, to wit, happiness; but, in the means, they differ, as to divine, so to this human felicity; and the cause is much the same, not always want of light and knowledge, but want of using them rightly. Men side with their passions against their reason, and their sinister interests have so strong a bias upon their minds, that they lean to them against the good of the things they know.

"Secondly, I do not find a model in the world, that time, place, and some singular emergencies have not necessarily altered; nor is it easy to frame a civil government, that shall serve all places alike.

"Thirdly, I know what is said by the several admirers of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule of one, a few, and many, and are the three common ideas of government, when men discourse on the subject, But I choose to solve the controversy with this small distinction, and it belongs to all three any government is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion.

But lastly, when all is said, there is hardly one frame of government in the world so ill designed by its first founders, that, in good hands, would not do well enough; and story tells us, the best, in ill ones, can do nothing that is great or good; witness the Jewish and Roman states. Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will curse it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavour to warp and spoil it to their turn.

"I know some say, let us have good laws, and no matter for the men that execute them: but let them consider, that though good laws do well, good men do better: for good laws may want good men, and be abolished or evaded by ill men; but good men will never want good laws, nor suffer ill ones. It is here, good laws have some awe upon ill ministers, but that is where they have not power to escape or abolish them, and the people are generally wise and good: but a loose and depraved people (which is to the question) love laws and an administration like themselves. That, therefore, which makes a good constitution, must keep it, viz. men of wisdom and virtue,

qualities, that because they descend not with worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a virtuous education of youth; for which after ages will owe more to the care and prudence of founders, and the successive magistracy, than to their parents, for their private patrimonies.

These considerations of the weight of government, and the nice and various opinions about it, made it uneasy to me to think of publishing the ensuing frame and conditional laws, foreseeing both the censures, they will meet with from men of differing humours and engagements, and the occasion they may give of discourse beyond my design.

"But, next to the power of necessity, (which is a solicitor that will take no denial) this induced me to a compliance, that we have (with reverence to God, and good conscience to men) to the best of our skill, contrived and composed the frame and laws of this government, to the great end of all government, viz. to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power; that they may be free by their just obedience, and the magistrates honourable for their just administration: for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery. To carry this evenness is partly owing to the constitution and partly to the magistracy: where either of these fail, government will be subject to convulsions; but where both are wanting it must be totally subverted: then where both meet the government is like to endure."

NOTE....No. V.

The annals of Massachussetts, for this period, exhibit one of those wonderful cases of popular delusion, which infecting every class of society, and gaining strength from its very extravagance; triumphing over human reason and trampling on human life; reveal to man his own imbecility; and would instruct him, if the experience of other

times could ever instruct, how cautiously he should, in any case, countenance a departure from that moderation, and those safe and sure principles of moral rectitude which have stood the test of time, and have received the approbation of the wise and good in all ages. A very detailed and interesting account of the humiliating and affecting events here alluded to has been given by mr. Hutchinson, but is too long to be inserted entire in this work: they were, however, of too much magnitude while passing, to be entirely unnoticed even at this day.

In Great Britain as well as in America, the opinion had long prevailed that, by the aid of malignant spirits, certain persons possessed supernatural powers, which were usually exercised in the mischievous employment of tormenting others; and the criminal code of both countries was disgraced with laws for the punishment of witchcraft. With considerable intervals between them, some few instances had occurred in New England of putting this sanguinary law in force; but in the year 1692, this weakness was converted into frenzy; and after exercising successfully its destructive rage on those miserable objects whose wayward dispositions had excited the ill opinion, or whose age and wretchedness ought to have secured them the pity of their neighbours, its baneful activity was extended to persons in every situation of life, and many of the most reputable members of society became its victims.

The first scene of this distressing tragedy was laid in Salem. The public mind had been prepared for its exhi bition by some publications, stating the evidence adduced in former trials for witchcraft both in old and New England, in which full proof was supposed to have been given of the guilt of the accused. Soon after this, some young girls in Boston had accustomed themselves to fall into fits, and had affected to be struck dead on the production of certain popular books, such as the assembly's catechism, and Cotton's milk for babes, while they could read Oxford's jests, or popish and quaker books, with many others, which were deemed profane, without being in any man

ner affected by them. These pretences, instead of exposing the fraud to instant detection, seem to have promoted the cheat; and they were supposed to be possessed by demons who were utterly confounded at the production of those holy books. "Sometimes, says mr. Hutchinson, they were deaf, then dumb, then blind; and sometimes, all these disorders together would come upon them. Their tongues would be drawn down their throats, then pulled out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoulders, elbows, and all their joints would appear to be dislocated, and they would make most piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with knives, beat, &c. and the marks of wounds were afterwards to be seen." At length an old Irish woman, not of good character, who had given one of those girls some harsh language, and to whom all this diabolical mischief was attributed, was apprehended by the magistracy; and neither confessing nor denying the fact, was, on the certificate of physicians that she was compos mentis, condemned and executed. An account of the circumstances of this case was published by a mr. Baxter, with a preface in which he says, the evidence is so convincing that he must be a very obdurate sadducee, who will not believe."

Sir William Phipps, the governor, on his arrival from England, brought with him opinions which could not fail to strengthen the popular prejudice, and the lieutenant governor supported one which was well calculated to render it sanguinary. He maintained that though the devil might appear in the shape of a guilty person, he could never be permitted to assume that of an innocent one. Consequently, when those who affected to perceive the form which tormented them designated any particular person as guilty, the guilt of that person was established, because he could not, if innocent, be personated by an evil spirit.

The public mind being thus predisposed, four girls in Salem, complained of being afflicted in the same manner with those in Boston, and the physicians unable to