Upon receiving this letter, Mather, who had probably, upon reflection, begun to doubt about the expediency of a public prosecution, signified that he had no desire to press the prosecution; and renewed the proposal for a conference. Calef "waited on Sessions;" but no one appearing against him, was dismissed. The affair seemed, at this crisis, to be tending toward an amicable conclusion. But Mather failed to meet him; and, on the eleventh of January, 1694, Calef addressed him again, recapitulating what had occurred, sending him copies of his previous letters and also of the Minutes he had taken of what occurred on the evenings of the thirteenth and nineteenth of September, with these words: "REVEREND SIR: Finding it necessary, on many accounts, I here present you with the copy of that Paper, which has been so much misrepresented, to the end, that what shall be found defective or not fairly represented, if any such shall appear, they may be set right."
This letter concludes in terms which show that, in that stage of the affair, Calef was disposed to treat Mather with great respect; and that he sincerely and earnestly desired and trusted that satisfaction might be given and taken, in the interview he so persistently sought--not merely in reference to the case of Margaret Rule, but to the general subject of witchcraft, on which they had different apprehensions: "I have reason to hope for a satisfactory answer to him, who is one that reverences your person and office."
This language strikingly illustrates the estimate in which Ministers were held. Reverence for their office and for them, as a body, pervaded all classes.
On the fifteenth of January, Mather replied complaining, in general terms, of the narrative contained in Calef's Minutes, as follows: "I do scarcely find any _one_ thing, in the whole paper, whether respecting my father or myself, either fairly or truly represented." "The narrative contains a number of mistakes and falsehoods which, were they wilful and designed, might justly be termed great lies." He then goes into a specification of a few particulars, in which he maintains that the Minutes are incorrect.
On the eighteenth of January, Calef replied, reminding him that he had taken scarcely any notice of the general subject of diabolical agency; but that almost the whole of his letter referred to the Minutes of the meetings, on the thirteenth and nineteenth of September; and he maintains their substantial accuracy and shows that some of Mather's strictures were founded upon an incorrect reading of them. In regard to Mather's different recollection of some points, he expresses his belief that if his account, in the Minutes, "be not fully exact, it was as near as memory could bear away." He notices the fact that he finds in Mather's letter no objection to what related to matters of greatest concern. Mather had complained that the Minutes reported certain statements made by Rule, which had been used to his disadvantage; and Calef suggests, "What can be expected less from the father of lies, by whom, you judge, she was possest?"