The Court met again on the 5th of August, and tried George Burroughs; John Procter and Elizabeth, his wife; George Jacobs, Sr.; John Willard; and Martha Carrier.  They were all condemned, and, with the exception of Elizabeth Procter, executed on the 19th of the same month.

Hutchinson describes the trial of Burroughs.  After speaking of the evidence of the “afflicted persons” and the confessing witches, he mentions other circumstances which were thought to corroborate it:  “One was, that, being a little man, he had performed feats beyond the strength of a giant; viz., had held out a gun of seven feet barrel with one hand, and had carried a barrel full of cider from a canoe to the shore.”  Burroughs said that an Indian present at the time did the same.  Instantly, the accusers said it was “the black man, or the Devil, who,” they swore, “looks like an Indian.”  Another piece of evidence was, that he went from one place to another, on a certain occasion, in a shorter time than was possible had not the Devil helped him.  He said, in answer, that another man accompanied him.  Their reply to this was, that it was the Devil, using the appearance of another man.  So whatever he said was turned against him.  Hutchinson says, “Upon the whole, he was confounded, and used many twistings and turnings, which, I think, we cannot wonder at.”  This fair and judicious writer, like Brattle, appears in the foregoing remark to have adopted the common scandal, put in circulation by parties interested to disparage Mr. Burroughs.  The papers in this case, that have come down to us, are more numerous than in reference to many others among the sufferers; and they do not bear such an impression.  Mr. Burroughs was astounded at the monstrous folly and falsehood with which he was surrounded.  He was a man without guile, and incapable of appreciating such wickedness.  He tried, in simplicity and ingenuousness, to explain what was brought against him; and this, probably, was all the “twisting and turning” he exhibited.

Hutchinson had the benefit of consulting all the papers belonging to this and other trials; but neither he nor Calef seems to have noticed one remarkable fact:  many of the depositions, how many we cannot tell, were procured after the trials were over, and surreptitiously foisted in among the papers to bolster up the proceedings.  We find, for instance, the following deposition:—­

“THOMAS GREENSLITT, aged about forty years, being deposed, testifieth that, about the first breaking-out of this last Indian war, being at the house of Captain Joshua Scotto at Black Point, he saw Mr. George Burrows, who was lately executed at Salem, lift a gun of six-foot barrel or thereabouts, putting the forefinger of his right hand into the muzzle of said gun, and that he held it out at arms’ end, only with that finger:  and further this deponent testifieth, that, at the same time, he saw the said Burrows take up a full barrel of molasses with but two