There was but little communication between the several villages and
settlements. To travel from Boston to Salem, for instance, which the
ordinary means of conveyance enable us to do at present in less than
an hour, was then the fatiguing, adventurous, and doubtful work of an
entire day.

It was the darkest and most desponding period in the civil history of
New England. The people, whose ruling passion then was, as it has ever
since been, a love for constitutional rights, had, a few years before,
been thrown into dismay by the loss of their charter, and, from that
time, kept in a feverish state of anxiety respecting their future
political destinies. In addition to all this, the whole sea-coast was
exposed to danger: ruthless pirates were continually prowling along
the shores. Commerce was nearly extinguished, and great losses had
been experienced by men in business. A recent expedition against
Canada had exposed the colonies to the vengeance of France.

The province was encumbered with oppressive taxes, and weighed down by
a heavy debt. The sum assessed upon Salem to defray the expenses of
the country at large, the year before the witchcraft prosecutions, was
£1,346. 1_s._ Besides this, there were the town taxes. The whole
amounted, no doubt, inclusive of the support of the ministry, to a
weight of taxation, considering the greater value of money at that
time, of which we have no experience, and can hardly form an adequate
conception. The burden pressed directly upon the whole community.
There were then no great private fortunes, no moneyed institutions, no
considerable foreign commerce, few, if any, articles of luxury, and no
large business-capitals to intercept and divert its pressure. It was
borne to its whole extent by the unaided industry of a population of