proceedings.  He repudiates the idea that Salem was, in any sense, exclusively responsible for the transaction; and affirms that “other justices in the country, besides the Salem justices, have issued out their warrants;” and states, that, of the eight “judges, commissioned for this Court at Salem, five do belong to Suffolk County, four of which five do belong to Boston, and therefore I see no reason why Boston should talk of Salem as though their own judges had had no hand in these proceedings in Salem.”

There is one view of the subject, upon which Brattle presses with much force and severity.  There is ground to suspect, that the proceedings were suffered to go on, after some of those appearing to countenance them had ceased to have faith in the accusations.  He charges, directly, complicity in the escape of Mrs. Carey, Mrs. English, Captain Alden, Hezekiah Usher, and others, upon the high officials; and says that while the evidence, upon which so many had been imprisoned, sentenced, and executed, bore against Mrs. Thacher, of Boston, she was never proceeded against.  “She was much complained of by the afflicted persons, and yet the justices would not issue out their warrants to apprehend” her and certain others; while at the very same time they were issuing, upon no better or other grounds, warrants against so many others.  He charges the judges with this most criminal favoritism.  The facts hardly justify such an imputation upon the judges.  They did not, after the trials had begun, it is probable, ever issue warrants:  that was the function of magistrates.  With the exception, perhaps, of Corwin, I think there is no evidence of there having been any doubts or misgivings on the bench.  It is altogether too heavy a charge to bring, without the strongest evidence, upon any one.  To intimate that officials, or any persons, who did not believe in the accusations, connived at the escape of their friends and relatives, and at the same time countenanced, pretended to believe, and gave deadly effect to them when directed against others, is supposing a criminality and baseness too great to be readily admitted.  In that wild reign of the worst of passions, this would have transcended them all in its iniquity.  The only excusable people at that time were those who honestly, and without a doubt, believed in the guilt of the convicted.  Those who had doubts, and did not frankly and fearlessly express them, were the guilty ones.  On their hands is the stain of the innocent blood that was shed.  It is not probable, and is scarcely possible, that any considerable number could be at once doubters and prosecutors.  On this point, Brattle must be understood to mean, not that judges, or others actively engaged in the prosecutions, warded off proceedings against particular friends or relatives from a principle of deliberate favoritism, but that third parties, actuated by a sycophantic spirit, endeavored to hush up or intercept complaints, when directed too near to the high officials, or thought to gain their favor by aiding the escape of persons in whom they were interested.