John. He
attacked the enemy's fort there, but, finding his force too weak, drew
off, and embarked for Boston. As his father's captaincy had somehow
developed into the dignity of major, so John found himself a colonel in
1711. But in 1717 he, too, died. And now there came a change in the
fortunes of the Hathorne line. Colonel John, during his magistracy, had
presided at the witchcraft trials, and had shown himself severe,
bigoted, and unrelenting in his spirit toward the accused persons.
Something of this may be seen in Upham's volumes. One woman was brought
before him, whose husband has left a pathetic record of her suffering.
"She was forced to stand with her arms stretched out. I requested that I
might hold one of her hands, but it was declined me; then she desired me
to wipe the tears from her eyes, and the sweat from her face, which I
did; then she desired that she might lean herself on me, saying she
should faint. Justice Hathorne replied she had strength enough to
torment these persons, and she should have strength enough to stand. I
repeating something against their cruel proceedings, they commanded me
to be silent, or else I should be turned out of the room." [Footnote:
Chandler's American Criminal Trials, I. p. 85.] It is not strange that
this husband should have exclaimed, that God would take revenge upon his
wife's persecutors; and perhaps he was the very man whose curse was said
to have fallen upon the justice's posterity.
From this time, at all events, the family lost its commanding position
in Salem affairs.
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