Chapter XIV: Section II

_Brief account of some of the principal_ witch-finders, _or_ witch discoverers, _as they were sometimes called_, _those pests of society_, _who were a disgrace to the country and to the age in which they lived_.

It would appear perhaps incredible, that those infernal beings called witch-finders should ever have been tolerated and encouraged in any country calling itself christian and protestant, had we not seen characters no less detestable and diabolical countenanced, caressed, and patronised in such countries. The execrable reign of Charles II swarmed with _Spies_ and _informers_, whose talents were employed to promote religious uniformity, and suppress liberty of conscience. Like the witch finders, they were countenanced by the magistrates, patronized by the gentry, and enriched by the wages of unrighteousness, and the ruin of innocent persons and families. Our own time has seen such wretches, and poor Ireland has been not a little prolific of them. Even among our financial or revenue agents some of the same family have made their appearance, which some are apt to consider as an evil and a grievance of no small magnitude. If our own time has abounded with such characters, and if they have been really countenanced and cherished by rulers and magistrates, we must not be too severe upon our ancestors for the course which they pursued in regard to those called witches and witch-finders: for we do not seem to have yet gone so far beyond them in wisdom and virtue as we are sometimes apt to think.

Among those called witch-finders, the first place seems due to _Matthew Hopkins_, of Maningtree, in Essex, who has been already mentioned, as invited here by the magistrates, to assist them in the discovery, or detection and conviction of witches, and the suppression of witchcraft. This man, as we are told, was witch-finder for the associated counties, (Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk,) and hanged in one year no less than _sixty_ reputed witches in his own county. The old, the ignorant, and the indigent; such as could neither plead their own cause nor hire an advocate; were the miserable victims of this wretch’s avarice and villany. He pretended to be a great critic in _special marks_; which were only moles, scorbutic spots, or warts, which frequently grew large and pendulous in old age, but were absurdly supposed to be teats to suckle imps. His ultimate method of proof was by tying together the thumbs and toes of the suspected person, about whose waist was fastened a cord, the ends of which were held, on the banks of a river, by two persons, in whose power it was to straighten or slacken it. _Swimming_, upon this experiment, was deemed a full proof of guilt; for which king James, (who is said to have recommended it, if he did not invent it,) assigned the following sage reason: “That as such persons have renounced their baptism by water, so the water refuses to receive them.” Sometimes those who were accused of diabolical practices were tied neck and heels and tossed into a pond. If they floated they were consequently guilty, and therefore taken out and burnt: if they were _innocent_ they were only _drowned_. The experiment of _swimming_ was at length tried upon Hopkins himself, in his own way, and he was in the event condemned, and, as it seems, executed as a wizard; {727} an end or retribution which he appears to have richly merited. But how far he was (if at all) convinced of that, at his exit, we are not informed. If we are not mistaken, there was also, about the same time, a noted witch-finder at _Ipswich_, who found pretty full employment, but as we have no account either of his mode of proceeding or exploits, or yet of his exit, we can say no more about him.

At the time when the belief and detestation of witchcraft were universal in this country there can be no doubt but the number of our pretended witch-finders was very considerable. It may be fairly supposed that there were more than one for every county, and even that they were no less numerous than our modern mountebanks and quack doctors. Some of them, however, would, in the natural course of things, outshine the rest, or far excel them in point of reputation or celebrity. Such a one was Hopkins, and such a one was that famous Scotchman, whose name we cannot at present make out, who found so much employment, in the way of his vile vocation, on this, as well as on the other side of the Tweed. Of him a curious account is given in a book entitled, England’s Grievance, &c. by _Ralph Gardiner_, Gent. of Chirton, in Northumberland. London: printed in 1655. Reprinted in 1796. Where we have the following information.

“In or about the year 1649 or 1650, the magistrates of Newcastle upon
Tyne sent two of their sergeants, namely Thomas Shevel, and Cuthbert
Nicholson, into Scotland, to agree with a Scotchman, who pretended
knowledge to finde out witches by pricking them with pins, to come to
Newcastle, where he should try such who should be brought to him, and
have 20_s._ a-piece for all he could condemn (or convict) as witches,
and free passage thither and back again: [i.e. have his expenses
borne to and fro.] When the sergeants had brought this witch-finder
on horseback to town, the magistrates sent their bellman through the
town ringing his bell, and crying, all people that would bring in any
complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and
tryed by the person appointed. _Thirty_ women were [accordingly]
brought into the town-hall and stript, and then openly had pins
thrust into their bodies, and most of them was (were) found guilty by
him, and set aside.

“The said reputed witch-finder acquainted colonel Hobson that he knew
women, whether they were witches or no, by their looks; and when he
was searching a personable and good-like [or good looking] woman, the
said colonel replied and said, Surely, this woman in none, and need
not be tryed: but the scotchman said she was, for the town said she
was, and therefore he would try her; and presently, in sight of all
the people, laid her body naked to the waste, [waist] with her
cloaths over her head; by which fright and shame all her blood
contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin into her
thigh, and suddenly let her coats fall, and then demanded whither she
had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed? But she being
amazed, replied little. Then he put his hands up her coats and
pulled out the pin, setting her aside, as a guilty person and child
of the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.”

“Colonel Hobson perceiving the alteration of the foresaid woman, by
her blood settling in her right parts, caused her to be brought
again, and her cloaths pulled up to her thigh, and required the scot
to run the pin into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood,
and the said scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of the
devil. So soon as he had done, and received his wages, he went into
Northumberland to try women there, where he got of some 3_l._
a-piece. But Henry Ogle Esq. a late member of parliament, laid hold
on him, and required bond of him, to answer the sessions, but he got
away for Scotland, and it was conceived, if he had staid, he would
have made most of the women in the north witches, for money.”

The poor Newcastle women, whom this wretch had set aside and pronounced guilty, were put in prison till the assizes, when 14 of them, and _one man_, were condemned, and afterwards executed: all solemnly protesting their innocence. Their names are mentioned at page 115 of the said book. The truth of the above account is attested by three persons, whose names it is needless to insert here.—As to the infamous witch-finder himself, we are told that “he was afterwards taken up in Scotland, cast into prison, indicted, arraigned, and condemned for such like villanie exercised in Scotland: and on the gallows confessed he had been the death of above 220 women, in England and Scotland, for the gain of 20_s._ a-piece, and beseeched forgiveness, and was executed.”

The author of the work from which this account is extracted, indignantly inquires, “by what law the magistrates of Newcastle could send to another nation for a mercenary person to try women for witches? and set the bellman to cry for them to be brought in?—and give 20_s._ a piece to the former to condemn them?” These queries we know not how to answer, but by supposing that the whole was a _lawless_, as well as a most iniquitous, barbarous, and scandalous business. The magistrates of Newcastle certainly appear on this occasion a vile and infamous crew, whose memory ought to be held up to the horror of perpetual detestation. How much better the magistrates of Lynn would have appeared, had we so particular an account of their proceedings, when they sent for Hopkins, it is impossible now to say. Their conduct, to say the least of it, appears sufficiently dark and despicable.

While we feel and express a just indignation against the witchfinders, as well as against the spies and informers and such like miscreants, we ought not to forget how much the existence, sufferance, and employment of them reflect on the character of the rulers and magistrates of those days, and even of the nation, or public at large; for had these been sufficiently enlightened and humanized, those detestable wretches had never been encouraged and employed, or even endured in the country. How baleful and deplorable therefore must intellectual blindness or ignorance be in any community? how desirable, important, and necessary for all descriptions of men, is the true knowledge of their respective rights and duties! Had our magistrates and legislators always possessed that knowledge, and acted accordingly, our annals had never been disgraced, as they are, with the recital of so many acts of injustice and oppression, or with such shocking accounts of the torturing, burning, and hanging of so many reputed criminals, under the misapplied and odious names of witches, heretics, and blasphemers.