ADVICE OF THE MINISTERS, FURTHER CONSIDERED. COTTON MATHER'S PLAN FOR DEALING WITH SPECTRAL TESTIMONY.
The _Advice of the Ministers_ is a document that holds a prominent place in our public history; and its relation to events needs to be elucidated.
In his _Life of Sir William Phips_, Cotton Mather has this paragraph: "And Sir William Phips arriving to his Government, after this ensnaring horrible storm was begun, did consult the neighboring Ministers of the Province, who made unto his Excellency and the Council, a Return (drawn up, at their desire, by Mr. Mather, the younger, as I have been informed) wherein they declared."--_Magnalia_, Book II., page 63.
He then gives, without intimating that any essential or substantial part of the _declaration_, or _Advice_, was withheld, the Sections _not_ included in brackets.--_Vide_, pages 21, 22, _ante_.
It is to be observed that Phips is represented as having asked the Ministers for their advice, and their answer as having been made to his "Excellency and the Council." There is no mention of this transaction in the Records of the Council. Phips makes no reference to it in his letter of the fourteenth of October, which is remarkable, as it would have been to his purpose, in explaining the grounds of his procedure, in organizing, and putting into operation, the judicial tribunal at Salem. It may be concluded, from all that I shall present,--Sir William, having given over the whole business to his Deputy and Chief-justice, with an understanding that he was authorized to manage it, in all particulars,--that this transaction with the Ministers may never have been brought to the notice of the Governor at all: his official character and title were, perhaps, referred to, as a matter of form. The Council, as such, had nothing to do with it; but the Deputy-governor and certain individual members of the Council, that is, those who, with him, as Chief-justice, constituted the Special Court, asked and received the _Advice_.
Again: the paragraph, as constructed by Mather, just quoted, certainly leaves the impression on a reader, that Phips applied for the _Advice of the Ministers_, at or soon after his arrival. The evidence, I think, is conclusive, that the _Advice_ was not asked, until after the first Session of the Court had been held. This is inferrible from the answer of the Ministers, which is dated thirteen days after the first trial, and five days after the execution of a sentence then passed. It alludes to the _success_ which had been given to the prosecutions. If the Government had asked counsel of the Ministers before the trials commenced, it is inexplicable and incredible, besides being inexcusable, that the Ministers should have delayed their reply until after the first act of the awful tragedy had passed, and blood begun to be shed. Hutchinson expressly says: "The further trials were put off to the adjournment, the thirtieth of June. The Governor and Council thought proper, _in the mean time_, to take the opinion of several of the principal Ministers, upon the state of things, as they then stood. This was an old Charter practice."--_History_, ii., 52.