592, 593.

For the jail fever, see Lecky, vol.i, pp.

500-503.
The same thing was seen in the Protestant colonies of America; but here, while plagues were steadily attributed to Divine wrath or Satanic malice, there was one case in which it was claimed that such a visitation was due to the Divine mercy.

The pestilence among the INDIANS, before the arrival of the Plymouth Colony, was attributed in a notable work of that period to the Divine purpose of clearing New England for the heralds of the gospel; on the other hand, the plagues which destroyed the WHITE population were attributed by the same authority to devils and witches.

In Cotton Mather's Wonder of the Invisible World, published at Boston in 1693, we have striking examples of this.