In reviewing the proceedings at the examinations and trials, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the infatuation of the magistrates and judges.  They acted throughout in the character and spirit of prosecuting officers, put leading and ensnaring questions to the prisoners, adopted a browbeating deportment towards them, and pursued them with undisguised hostility.  They assumed their guilt from the first, and endeavored to force them to confess; treating them as obstinate culprits because they would not.  Every kind of irregularity was permitted.  The marshal was encouraged in perpetual interference to prejudice the persons on trial, watching and reporting aloud to the Court every movement of their hands or heads or feet.  Other persons were allowed to speak out, from the body of the crowd, whatever they chose to say adverse to the prisoner.  Accusers were suffered to make private communications to the magistrates and judges before or during the hearings.  The presiding officers showed off their smartness in attempts to make the persons on trial before them appear at a disadvantage.  In some instances, as in the case of Sarah Good, the magistrate endeavored to deceive the accused by representing falsely the testimony given by another.  The people in and around the court-room were allowed to act the part of a noisy mob, by clamors and threatening outcries; and juries were overawed to bring in verdicts of conviction, and rebuked from the bench if they exercised their rightful prerogative without regard to the public passions.  The chief-justice, in particular, appears to have been actuated by violent prejudice against the prisoners, and to have conducted the trials, all along, with a spirit that bears the aspect of animosity.

There is one point of view in which he must be held responsible for the blood that was shed, and the infamy that, in consequence, attaches to the proceedings.  It may well be contended, that not a conviction would have taken place, but for a notion of his which he arbitrarily enforced as a rule of law.  It was a part of the theory relating to witchcraft, that the Devil made use of the spectres, or apparitions, of some persons to afflict others.  From this conceded postulate, a division of opinion arose.  Some maintained that the Devil could employ only the spectres of persons in league with him; others affirmed, that he could send upon his evil errands the spectres of innocent persons, without their consent or knowledge.  The chief-justice held the former opinion, against the judgment of many others, arbitrarily established it as a rule of Court, and peremptorily instructed juries to regard it as binding upon them in making their verdicts.  The consequence was that a verdict of “Guilty” became inevitable.  But few at that time doubted the veracity of the “afflicted persons,” which was thought to be demonstrated to the very senses by their fits and sufferings, in the presence of the Court, jury, and all beholders.  When they swore that they saw the shapes of Bridget Bishop, or Rebecca Nurse, or George Burroughs, choking or otherwise torturing a person, the fact was regarded as beyond question.