icularly on account of the postscript. Every one has been led to
suppose that "His Excellency, the Governor," who had laid such "positive
commands" upon Mather to obtain the desired document from Sewall, was
Sir William Phips. The avowed purpose of Mather, in seeking it, was to
put it into circulation--to "box it about"--thereby to produce an
effect, to the putting down of Sadduceeism, or all further opposition to
witchcraft prosecutions. He, undoubtedly, contemplated making it a part
of his book, the _Wonders of the Invisible World_, printed, the next
year, in London. The statement made by him always was, that he wrote
that book in compliance with orders laid upon him to that effect by "His
Excellency, the Governor." The imprimatur, in conspicuous type, in front
of one of the editions of the book, is "Published by the special command
of his Excellency, the Governor of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay
in New England."

On the sixteenth of September, Sir William Phips had notified the
Council of his going to the eastward; and that body was adjourned to
the fourteenth of October. From his habitual promptness, and the
pressing exigency of affairs in the neighborhood of the Kennebec, it is
to be presumed that he left immediately; and, as it was expected to be a
longer absence than usual, it can hardly be doubted that, as on the
first of August, he formally, by a written instrument, passed the
Government over to Stoughton. At any rate, while he was away from his
Province proper, the Deputy necessarily acceded to the Executive
functions.

In the Sewall Diary we find the following: "SEPT. 21. A petition is sent
to Town, in behalf of Dorcas Hoar, who now confesses. Accordingly, an
order is sent to the Sheriff to forbear her execution, notwithstanding
her being in the Warrant to die to-morrow. This is the first condemned
person who has confessed."

The granting of this reprieve was an executive act, that would seem to
have belonged to the functions of the person filling the office of
Governor; and Phips being absent, it could only have been performed by
Stoughton, and shows, therefore, that he, at that time, acted as
Governor. As such, he was, by custom and etiquette, addressed--"His
Excellency." The next day, eight were executed, four of them having been
sentenced on the ninth of September, and four on the seventeenth, which
was on Saturday. The whole eight were included, as is to be inferred
from the foregoing entry, a