ef-justice, the Judges, and perhaps his
own Ministers, that they were not within the reach of those "blows,"
with which, as Mather informs us, in the _Life of Phips_, the rough
sailor was wont, when the gusts of passion were prevailing, to "chastise
incivilities," without reference to time or place, rank or station.

But, as was his wont, the storm of wrath soon subsided; his purpose,
however, under the circumstances, as brave as it was wise and just, was,
as the result showed, unalterable. He communicated to the Judges,
personally, that they must sit no more, at Salem or elsewhere, to try
cases of witchcraft; and that no more arrests must be made, on that
charge.

Mather's book, all ready as it was for the press, thus became labor
thrown away. It was not only rendered useless for the purpose designed,
but a most serious difficulty obstructed its publication. Phips forbade
the "printing of any discourses, one way or another;" and the _Wonders_
had incorporated in it some Sermons, impregnated, through and through,
with combustible matter, in Phips's view, likely to kindle an
inextinguishable flame.

All that could be done was to keep still, in the hope that he would
become more malleable. In the meanwhile, public business called him
away, perhaps to Rhode Island or Connecticut, from the eighteenth to the
twenty-seventh of October. In his absence, whether in consequence of
movements he had put in train, or solely from what had become known of
his views, the circumstance occurred which is thus related in Sewall's
Diary--the Legislature was then in Session: "OCT. 26, 1692. A Bill is
sent in about calling a Fast and Convocation of Ministers, that may be
led in the right way, as to the Witchcrafts. The season, and manner of
doing it, is such, that the Court of Oyer and Terminer count themselves
thereby dismissed. 29 nos & 33 yeas to the Bill. Capt. Bradstreet, and
Lieut. True, Wm. Hutchins, and several other interested persons, in the
affirmative."

The course of Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, and the action in the
Legislature of the persons here named, entitle the Merrimac towns of
Essex-county to the credit of having made the first public and effectual
resistance to the fanaticism and persecutions of 1692.

The passage of this Bill, in the House of Representatives, shows how the
public mind had been changed, since the June Session. Dudley Bradstreet
was a Magistrate and member from Andover, son of the old Governo