Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
THE
SALEM BELLE:
A Tale of 1692.
BOSTON:
TAPPAN & DENNET,
114 Washington Street.
1842.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by
TAPPAN & DENNET,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
{ Printed by S. N. Dickinson, }
{ 52 Washington Street. }
INTRODUCTION.
The following letter addressed to the author, will explain thecircumstances which led to the publication of this little work.
Cumberland County, Va., July, 1841.
Dear Sir:
In compliance with your request, I now send you a manuscript whichcontains all the material circumstances of a remarkable legend,founded on the singular events of 1692. The original chronicleis lost, but its general features were strongly impressed onmy memory, and I committed them to writing, some years since,and very soon after the discovery that the first manuscriptwas missing. I hope you will be able to make such use of thesematerials, as shall expose the danger of[Pg iv] popular delusions, andguard the public mind against their recurrence. It is too late torevive the folly of witchcraft, but other follies are pressing onthe community,—fanaticism in various ways is moulding the publicfeeling into unnatural shapes, and shadowing forth a train ofundefined evils, whose forms of mischief are yet to be developed.In this state of things, our true wisdom is to take counsel ofthe past, and not suffer ourselves to be led astray by bold andstartling theories, which can only waste the mental energies,and make shipwreck of the mind itself on some fatal rock ofsuperstition or infidelity.
It is an age of boasted liberty and light, but it may well bedoubted whether these high pretensions are any powerful defenceagainst popular mistakes. It often happens that the moral plaguespot is first seen in the walks of science. It was so in the dayswhich this manuscript commemorates: men renowned for talents andlearning gave countenance to a delusion which swept over the land,and will be known in all coming ages by its track of blood anddeath.
I am not opposed to innovations upon any vicious principle orhabit whatsoever. I have no respect[Pg v] for any venerable theory,unless its claims are supported by the Bible and common sense; buthow often is that noble edifice of Truth, which the Bible revealsto our eye, deformed by the additions and inventions of men! TheCatholic church has for ages thrown up its battlements and towerson the heavenly structure; but these imagined ornaments have onlymarred its beauty, and hidden its real grandeur from the eye.Other sects have attempted to improve upon the divine Architect;and thus it has happened that the cumbrous scaffolding has fallen,and buried multitudes in its ruins. But if this Temple had beenpermitted to stand in its own nativ
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