The accounts given of the legal proceedings seem
monstrous. The preliminary examinations were conducted amid such "hideous
clamours and screechings," that frequently the voice of the defendant was
drowned, and if a defence was attempted at a trial, the victim was
browbeaten and mocked by the bench. [Footnote: _More Wonders_, p. 102.]
The ghastly climax was reached in the case of George Burroughs, who had
been the clergyman at Wells. At his trial the evidence could hardly be
heard by reason of the fits of the sufferers. "The chief judge asked the
prisoner, who he thought hindered these witnesses from giving their
testimonies? and he answered, he supposed it was the devil. That
honourable person then replied, How comes the devil so loath to have any
testimony born against you? Which cast him into very great confusion."
Presently the informers saw the ghosts of his two dead wives, whom they
charged him with having murdered, stand before him "crying for vengeance;"
yet though much appalled, he steadily denied that they were there. He also
roused his judges' ire by asserting that "there neither are, nor ever
were, witches." [Footnote: _Idem_, pp. 115-119.]
He and those to die with him were carried through the streets of Salem in
a cart. As he climbed the ladder he called God to witness he was innocent,
and his words were so pathetic that the people sobbed aloud, and it seemed
as though he might be rescued even as he stood beneath the tree.
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