The General Court ordered the Special Court to meet again
"to put an issue to those former matters."
October 28, 1692, this entry appears of record:
"The jury being called to make a return of their indictment that had
been committed to them concerning Mercy Disborough, they return that
they find the prisoner guilty according to the indictment of familiarity
with Satan. The jury being sent forth upon a second consideration of
their verdict returned that they saw no reason to alter their verdict,
but to find her guilty as before. The court approved of their verdict
and the Governor passed sentence of death upon her."
The hesitation of the jury to agree upon a verdict, the reference to the
General Court for more specific authority to act, all point to serious
question of the evidence, the motives of witnesses, the value of the
traditional and lawful tests of the guilt of the accused.
In the search for facts which the old records certify to at this late
day, one is deeply impressed by the wisdom and potency of the sober
afterthought and conclusions of some of the clergy, lawyers, and men of
affairs, who sat as judges and jurors in the witch trials, which led
them to weigh and analyze the evidence, spectral and otherwise, and so
call a halt in the prosecutions and convictions.
What some of the Massachusetts men did and said in the contemporaneous
outbreak at Salem has been shown, but nowhere is the reaction there more
clearly illustrated than in the statement of Reverend John
Hale--great-grandsire of Nathan Hale, the revolutionary hero--the long
time pastor at Beverly Farms, who from personal experience became
convinced of the grave errors at the Salem trials, and in his _Modest
Inquiry_ in 1697 said:
"Such was the darkness of that day, the tortures and lamentations of the
afflicted, and the power of former precedents, that we walked in the
clouds and could not see our way.
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