SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

CAIN/NAL LAW, American Criminal Trials. By Poles W. Chandler. Volume I.

Dtaverics, Maxwell. London ; Little and Brown. Baste*. U. S. Food :aid its Influence on Health and Disease ; or an Account of the Erects of different kinds of Aliment on the Haman Body. With Dietetic Rules for the Pre-

servation of Health. By Matthew Truman, M.D. &c Murray.

The Miser's Daughter ; a Tale. By William Harrison Ainsworth, Author of the Toner of Loudon," •• Old Saint Paul's," &e. With Illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes Cuxhinghent and Mortisser.

CHANDLER'S AMERICAN CRIMINAL TRIALS.

WENN we received this volume, in the height of' the London sea- son, we could do little more than chronicle its arrival and com- mend its scope and purpose. The autumnal leisure having enabled us to peruse it with attention, we propose to notice it more fully, as well for the merits of its execution as for the curious picture of old colonial manners it presents, and the suggestions it offers to the students of history and human nature.

The plan and execution of the American Criminal Trials are rather peculiar. They are not a mere servile copy or dry abridg- ment of existing reports, where the only merit of the compiler con- sists in calling public attention to certain proceedings and facilitat- ing their perusal by collecting the scattered records into a series; nor are they merely a skilful and elaborate description of sin- gular trials, suppressing what is formal or subordinate and bring- mg out the more striking points. Although skilful in his treat- ment and often graphic in his effects, Mr. CHANDLER, by accident or design, has generally chosen such American criminal trials as throw a light upon American colonial history, or exhibit the phases of public opinion—it may be of public madness. Hence there is frequently an interest over and above that of the facts of the trials themselves, from the public events with which they were connected, or the singular and criminal public delusion which they record; whilst Mr. CHANDLER, by introductory notices or observations in- termixed with the text, makes the reader sufficiently acquainted with the period to follow the trials with advantage, as by judicious observations at their close he often points the moral which they illustrate.

The volume commences in 1637, with the case of ANNE HUTCH.. mon for "sedition and heresy," and closes in 1770, with the trial of Captain PRESTON and some soldiers for murder, in consequence of firing on the people in the riot, called at the time the Boston Massacre. The principal other cases are those connected with the New England persecution of the Quakers, 1656-1661; the bloody and fanatical proceedings against witchcraft in 1692; the trial of JOHN PETER ZENGER for libel on the Government of New York, in 1735; the Negro Plot trials at New York, in 1741, for a con- spiracy to burn the city, murder the inhabitants, erect a White pot-house-keeper as King, with a certain Black called CASSAR as Governor ; to which panic was added the terror of a Spanish- Popish-plot. Of these cases, ANNE Huxclinisores is curious, not only in itself, as exhibiting the fanaticism of a female apostle, but for the indirect.picture it furnishes of New England at the time, where every individual seems to have been a theological controvertist, and where a private woman, by very nice and not always very intel- ligible points of doctrine, could throw a whole community into con- fusion. The trial of the soldiers at Boston has an interest as being the first blood shed in the dispute which eventually lost England her colonies, and for the picture it furnishes of the excitable and excited state of the American mind at the time. The case of ZENGEB is chiefly remarkable for the boldness of the advocate's line of defence, in which he maintained that the jury in cases of libel were judges of law as well as fact, and for the jury's coin- cidence in that view ; a point that was doubtful in England for half a century. afterwards.* The trials for Witchcraft and the Negro Plot are specimens of that panic fear affecting a whole society, and satiating itself in blood, which arises at certain periods without any adequate cause that is apparent to an inquirer ; of which the Popish plot in England is another example, and, on a much larger scale, the reign of terror in France. The persecutions of the Quakers have often been adduced as an example of New England fanaticism, and of the bloody spirit that animated the Puritans. Of the fanaticism there is no doubt ; but, looking at the opinion of the age and the circumstances under which the colony was founded, the charge of bloody-minded persecution must be received with some limitations. The Quakers were in- truders into the colony, and, bating that they were English sub- jects, foreign intruders. A cruel and extremely penal spirit, no doubt, characterizes the laws against them, (it was also character- istic of the age,) but the object was to deter persons from bringing them into the jurisdiction and to confine them until they could be expelled.. When these measures failed of effect, they were banished, under pain of death; and though several, on returning, were ex- ecuted, the execution rested with themselves : they had the option of undertaking to leave the colony ; but, as they had conie into it without any secular vocation or rational purpose, and solely to brave their fate in obedience to the "inner light," they refused. It must also be remarked, that freedom of opinion for themselves was not so much their aim as the freedom of insulting the opinion of others.

* In the care of JUNIUS'S "Letter to the King," the jury, puzzled by Lord MANSFIELD'S charge, brought in a special verdict "guilty of printing and publishing On/V"; which, after various delays, and a question as to how far Judgment for libel could be pronounced upon such a verdict, ended in the triumph of the printer.

" Many of the sect, which at this day is remarkable for a guarded composure of language, an elaborate stillness, precision, and propriety of demeanour, were at the time referred to as guilty of conduct which the experience of a rational and calculating age finds it difficult to conceive.' They openly denounced the Government of New England as treason. They reviled at all orders of magic- tratea, and every civil institution. They stigmatized a regular priesthood as • priesthood of BaaL Some of them, in the apprehension of the colonists, were guilty of the most revolting blasphemy against the Sacraments, which they termed carnal and idolatrous observances. They interrupted public worship in a manner as indecent as it was illegal and unbecoming. The female preachers exceeded their male associates in these acts of frenzy and folly, and excited the utmost disgust among a people remarkable for them staid and sober deport- ment.

'In 1665, Lydia Wardell, a respectable married woman, entered stark naked into the church in Newbury where she formerly worshipped ; and was highly extolled for her submission to the inward light, that had revealed to her the duty of illustrating the spiritual nakedness of her neighbours by this indecent exhibition of her own person. 'The people,' says Brace the Quaker, who wrote long after the excitement attending these scenes had subsided, and in another country, 'instead of religiously reflecting on their on n condition, which she came in that manner to represent to them, fell into a rage, and pre- sently laid hands on her and hurried her away to the court at Ipswich ;' where she was hastily sentenced to be severely whipped at the next tavern-post. She was accordingly stripped, and tied with her naked breasts against the splinters of the post, and lashed with more than a score of stripes; 'which, though they miserably tore her bruised body, were yet to the great comfort of her husband and friends, who, having unity with her in those sufferings and in the cause of them, stood by to comfort her in so deep a triaL' In the same year, Deborah Wilson, a young and respectable married woman, made a similar display in the streets of Salem ; for which she was sentenced to be tied to the cart's tail and whipped, with her mother and sister, who, it was said, had counselled her. Her young husband, who was not a Quaker, followed after, sometimes thrusting his hat between the whip and her back. "In July 1675, four women and one man were arrested in Boron, for creating a horrible disturbance, and,' as the warrant set forth, affrighting people in the South church at the time of the public dispensing of the word on the Lord's day, whereby several women are in danger of miscarrying.' Mar- garet Brewster, the leader of the band, appears to have arrived in the town from Barbados on the Lord's Day, and leaving her riding-clothes and shoes at the door of the South church, she rushed into the house with her female com- panions, creating an alarm in the astonished assembly that baffles description. She was clothed in sackcloth, with ashes upon her head, and her hair stream- ing over her shoulders : her feet were bare, and her face was begrimmed with coal-dust. She announced herself as an illustration of the black-pox, which she predicted as an approaching judgment on the people. Upon her examina- tion before the Magistrates, she said that God had three years since laid this service upon her in Barbados, and she had her husband's consent to come and perform it. She and her female companions were sentenced to be stripped from the middle upwards and tied to a cart's tail at the South meeting-house, and drawn through the town, receiving twenty lashes on their naked backs."

The true moral of the whole, however, is the uselessness of per- secution. As long as the Quakers were made objects of attention and punished, so long they persisted in disturbing the colony ; when neglected or treated with contempt, they came not to it, or sank down into quiet citizens. Rhode Island, founded on a prin- ciple of perfect freedom, saw this from the beginning ; and the letter in which the colony announced to the Government of Mas- sachusetts their determination to pass no laws upon the subject, contains the rationale of civil interference with religious freedom, which so many have yet to learn.

"4 We find,' they said in a letter to the General Court, that in those places where these people aforesaid, in this colony, are most of all suffered to declare them- selves freely, and are only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come; and we are informed that they began to loathe this place, for that they are not opposed by the civil authority, but with all patience and meekness are suffered to say over their pretended revelations and admonitions: nor are they like or able to gain many here to their way : and surely we find that they delight to be persecuted by civil powers; and when they are so, they are like to gam more adherents by the conseyte of their patient sufferings than by consent to their pernicious sayings.'" As matter of attraction respecting what CorroN MATHER'S title calls "The Wonders of the Invisible World," the trials for witch- craft are the most amusing. They are also the best treated (perhaps they admitted of the best treatment) by Mr. CHANDLER; a brief narrative telling the history of the public delusion, and the general mode of carrying on the trials, whilst any particular case is exhibited at length. Except in the illegality of the pro- ceedings, the Governor having no power to appoint the court he nominated to try the witches, the proceedings do not essentially differ from similar cases in this country, unless in the predominance of the evidence touching acts of the accused when they were "not present in the body "—a species of evidence so easy to invent, and of course impossible to disprove. It is difficult to say whether the following statements are pure inventions of folly or malice, or optical delusions, arising from deranged health and the melan- choly temperament so likely to be induced by the fanaticism of New England, and taking the shape of the current superstition. The evidence was given on the trial of BRIDGET BISHOP, an old woman who had been in ill-repute as a witch for more than twenty years.

PRANKS OF A WITCH NOT PRESENT IN THE BODY.

Samuel Gray testified, that about fourteen years ago (1678) he waked on a night and saw the room where he lay full of light ; and that he then saw plainly a woman between the cradle and the bedside, which looked upon Lim. He rose and it vanished, though he found the doors all fast : looking out at the entry-door, he saw the same woman in the same garb again, and said, "in God's name, what do you come for?" He went to bed and had the same wo- man assaulting him. The child in the cradle gave a great screech, and the wo- man disappeared. It was long before the child could be quieted ; and though it was a very likely thriving child, yet from this time it pined away, and after divers months died in a sad condition. He knew not Bishop nor her name; but when he saw her after this, be knew by her countenance and apparel, and all circumstances, that it was the apparition of this Bishop which had thus

troubled him. • • • •

Richard Cowan testified, that eight years ago, as belay awake in his bed, with a light burning in the room, he was annoyed with the apparition of the prisoner and of two more that were strangers to him, who came and oppressed him so that he could neither stir himself nor wake any one else; and that he was the night

after molested again in the like manner ; the said Bishop taking him by the throat and pulling him almost out of the bed. His kinsman offered for this cause to lodge with him ; and that night, as they were awake discoursing together, the witness was once more visited by the guests which had formerly been so trouble- some, his kinsman being at the same time struck speechless, and unable to move hand or foot. He had laid his sword by him; which those unhappy spec- tres did strive much to wrest from him, but he held it too fast for them. Be then grew able to call the people of his house; but although they heard him, yet they had not power to speak or stir, until at last, one of the people crying out "what is the matter ? " the spectres all vanished. • • * • John Louder testified, that upon some little controversy with Bishop about her fowls, going well to bed, he awoke in the night by moonlight and saw clearly the likeness of this woman grievously oppressing him ; in which miserable con-

dition she held him unable to help himself till near day. Be told Bishop of this; but she utterly denied it, and threatened him very much. Quickly after

this being at home on a Lord's Day with the doors shut about him, he saw a black pig approach him ; which endeavouring to kick, it vanished away. Im- mediately after, sitting down, he saw a black thing jump in at the window and come and stand before him. The body was like that of a monkey, the feet like a cock's, but the face much like a man's. He being so extremely affrighted that he could not speak, this monster spoke to him and said, "I am a messen- ger sent unto you, for 1 understand that you are in some trouble of mind ; and af you will be ruled by me you shall want for nothing in this world." Where- upon he endeavoured to clap his hands upon it; but he could feel no substance, and it jumped out of the window again; but immediately came in by the porch though the doors were shut, and said, "you had better take my counsel." He then struck at it with a stick; but struck only the groundsel, and broke the etick. The arm with which he struck was presently disabled ; and it vanished away. He presently went out at the back-door, and spied this Bishop in her orchard, going toward her house ; but he had not power to set one foot forward unto her. Whereupon, returning into the house, he was immediately accosted by the monster he had seen before, which goblin was going to fly at him ; whereat he cried out, "the whole armour of God be between me and you!" So it sprung back and flew over the apple-tree, shaking many apples off the tree in its flying over. At its leap, it flung dirt with its feet against the stomach of the man ; whereon he was then struck dumb, and so continued for three days together. " Upon the producing of this testimony," says Cotton Mather, " Bishop denied that she knew this deponent. Yet their two orchards joined, and they had often had their little quarrels for some years together."

William Stacy testified, that receiving money of this Bishop for work done by him, be was gone but a matter of three roods from her, and looking for his money found it unaccountably gone from him. Some time after, Bishop asked him whether his father would grind her grist for her? He demanded why ? She replied because folks count me a witch. He answered, "no question but be will grind it for you." Being then gone about six roods from her with a load in his cart, suddenly the off-wheel slumpt and sunk down into a hole, upon plain ground ; so that the witness was forced to get help for the recovering of the wheel. But, stepping hack to look for the hole which might give him this disaster, there was none at all to be found. Some time after, he was waked in the night ; but it seemed as light as day, and be perfectly saw the shape of this Bishop in the room troubling of him ; but upon her going out all was dial again. He charged Bishop afterwards with it ; and she denied it not, but was very angry. Quickly after, this witness having been threatened by Bishop, as he was in a dark night going to the barn, he was very suddenly taken or lifted from the ground and thrown against a stone wall; after that, he was again hoisted up and thrown down a hank at the end of his house. After this, again passing by this Bishop, his horse, with a small load, striving to draw, all his gears flew to pieces and the cart fell down ; and this deponent going then to lift a bag of corn of about two bushels, could not budge it with all his might. Many other pranks of this Bishop the witness was ready to relate. He also testified, that be verily believed the said Bishop was the instrument of his daughter Priscilla's death ; "of which suspicion pregnant reasons were assigned."

John Bly and William Bly testified, that being employed by Bridget Bishop to help take down the cellar-wall of the old house wherein she formerly lived, they did in holes of the said old wall find several poppets, made up of rags and bog's bristles, with headless pins in them, the points being outward ; "whereof the prisoner could now give no account unto the Court that was reasonable or tolerable."

Before we quit this able and interesting volume, let us note two points : either Colonial America produced no case of private crime so atrocious as to be remarkable for its atrocity, or Mr. CHANDLER has not recorded it : how rapidly opinion changes if the change be marked at some elapsed time, and not in its gradual progress. It is customary to talk of the wonderful fluctuations in public opinion during the present century, and no doubt they have been very great ; but they are nothing so great as took place during a similar space of time in the Plantations respecting Quakers and Witchcraft—although some suppose the age of the STUARTS was an age of stagnation. The fact is, history is progress ; and it would form a curious chapter of it to note the changes that have taken place in the world's mind at comparatively short periods.