With Halloween approaching at the end of the month, we offer the following:
Some that had been of several juries have given forth a paper, signed with our own hands in these words. We whose names are underwritten, being in the year 1692 called to serve as jurors in court in Salem, on trial of many who were by some suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons.
We confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the powers of darkness and prince of the air, but were for want of knowledge in ourselves and better information from others, prevailed with to take up with such evidence against the accused as on further consideration and better information, we justly fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of any, Deuteronomy 17.6, whereby we fear we have been instrumental with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord, the guilt of innocent blood, which sin the Lord saith in Scripture, he would not pardon, 2 Kings 24.4, that is we suppose in regard of His temporal judgments. We do, therefore, hereby signify to all in general (and to the surviving sufferers in especial) our deep sense of and sorrow for our errors in acting on such evidence to the condemning of any person.
And do hereby declare that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which we are much disquieted and distressed in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ's sake for this our error. And pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others. And we also pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living sufferers as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with and not experienced in matters of that nature.
We do heartily ask forgiveness of you all, whom we have justly offended and do declare, according to our present minds, we would none of us do such things again on such grounds for the whole world, praying you to accept of this in way of satisfaction for our offense, and that you would bless the inheritance of the Lord that He may be entreated for the land.
-From "The Apology of the Salem Jury," 1697, signed by Thomas Fisk, Thomas Perly, Senior, William Fiske, John Peabody, John Batcheler Thomas Perkins, Thomas Fisk, Junior, Samuel Sather, John Dane, Andrew Elliott, Joseph Evelith, and Henry Herrick, Senior.
The "Apology," together with other related documents, can be found in The Penguin Book of Witches.[1] For further details about the trials and their aftermath, see, e.g., Marilynne K. Roach’s The Salem Witch Trials: A Day by Day Chronicle of a Community Under Seige[2] and Six Women of Salem[3] and Frances Hill’s A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials.[4]
[1] Katherine Howe, ed. The Penguin Book of Witches (Penguin Classics, 2014).
[2] Taylor Trade Publishing, 2013.
[3] Da Capo Press, 2013.
[4] Da Capo Press, 2002.