ession, "box it about." The opinion I gave was that it
referred to the document requested to be sent by Sewall. The Reviewer
says it refers to "a Spectre," in the preceding line, or as he expresses
it, "the fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism." Every one can judge for himself
on inspection of the passage. After all, it is a mere quibbling about
words, for the meaning remains substantially the same. Indeed, that
which he gives is more to my purpose. Let it go, that Mather desired the
document, and intended to use it, to break down all objectors to the
work then doing in Salem. Whoever disapproved of such proceedings, or
intimated any doubt concerning the popular notions about witchcraft,
were called "Sadducees and witch-advocates." These terms were used by
Mather, on all occasions, as marks of opprobrium, to stigmatize and
make odious such persons. If they could once be silenced, witchcraft
demonstrations and prosecutions might be continued, without impediment
or restraint, until they should "come," no one could tell "where, at
last." "The fallen Spectre of Sadduceeism" was to be the trophy of
Mather's victory; and Sewall's letter was to be the weapon to lay it
low.

Each of the paragraphs of this letter demonstrates the position Mather
occupied, and the part he had taken, in the transactions at Salem. Mr.
Hale had acted, up to this time, earnestly with Noyes and Parris; and
the letter shows that Mather had the sympathies and the interests of a
cooperator with them, and in their "designs." Every person of honorable
feelings can judge for himself of the suggestion to Sewall, to be a
partner in a false representation to the public, by addressing Mather
"in a spectre so unlike" him--that is, in a character which he, Sewall,
knew, as well as Mather, to be wholly contrary to the truth. Blinded,
active, and vehement, as the Clerk of the Court had been, in carrying on
the prosecutions, it is gratifying to find reason to conclude that he
was not so utterly lost to self-respect as to comply with the jesuitical
request, or lend himself to any such false connivance.

The letter was written at the height of the fury of the delusion,
immediately upon a Session of the Court, at which all tried had been
condemned, eight of whom suffered two days after its date. Any number of
others were under sentence of death. The letter was a renewal of "a most
importunate request."

I cite it, here, at this stage of the examination of the subject,
part