91 



At a subsequent period it was here that dire delusioiij 

 witchcraft, with all its train of mournful consequences, filling 

 so dark a page in New England history, first developed itself. 

 Salem, it is true, enjoys no enviable notoriety from this 

 circumstance, yet it serves to strengthen the interest created by 

 other facts, in her early history. 



Dropping down nearly another century of time, we find her 

 entering with her whole heart and soul into the issue then 

 pending with the mother country, and furnishing her full share 

 of the interesting incidents which distinguished the first dawning 

 of the American Revolution. Here too we claim, the first blow 

 was struck in the war of independence, by open resistance to 

 both the civil and military poAver of the mother country; 

 comparatively bloodless, it is true, but not the less firm and 

 decided. All the events of that eventful period have long since 

 become matters of history, and comparatively nothing can now 

 be added to the facts already elicited by the historian. But of 

 individual deeds of heroic valor and reckless daring, which 

 distinguished our fathers in that fearful struggle, the half has 

 never yet been written. Scarcely an octogenarian is now met 

 with, who cannot tell a thrilling tale of the adventures of a 

 father or brother, the bare recital of Avhich, even at this distance 

 of time, will "chill the blood and harrow up the soul." The 

 opportunities to gather up the fragmentary and yet unwritten 

 incidents in the lives of those brave men are becoming every 

 day more rare, and ere long will have passed away forever. 

 The grave is fast closing over the few remaining actors in those 

 scenes. How many interesting facts will thus soon be lost to 

 history, despite all the efforts to elicit and preserve them ! 



For a better understanding of the event in ail its bearings, 

 which we propose to relate, let us look for a moment at the 

 situation of the country at that time, and for a few years 

 antecedent ; and also at the state of feeling of the inhabitants of 

 Salem, consequent thereupon : — 



The disputes between Great Britain and her American 

 Colonies had been carried on with little or no intermission for 

 a period of ten years. The most prominent and exciting of 

 these disputes, was the right claimed by England to tax the 

 colonies for the benefit of the British treasury. It had been at 

 times agitated in Parliament for upwards of twenty-five years. 

 In 1739, a scheme for this purpose was opposed by Sir Robert 

 Walpole, then the Prime minister. At length in the spring of 

 1765 the Parliament, having previously levied duties on all 



