What more! why, if need be, much more! You drive people to confession, I say—you drive them to it, step by step, as with a scourge of iron. Their lives are at stake, I will say—yet more—I mean to say much more now; now that you will provoke me to it. I say now that you—you—ye judges of the land!—you are the cause of all that we suffer! The accused are obliged to accuse. They have no other hope. They lie—and you know it, or should know it—and you know, as well as I do, that they have no other hope, no other chance of escape. All that have hitherto confessed are alive now. All that have denied your charges, all that have withstood your mighty temptation—they are all in the grave—all—all—
Brother—we have read in the Scriptures of Truth, or at least I have, that of old, a woman had power to raise the dead. If she was upon her trial now, would you not receive her confession? I wait your reply.
Receive it, governor Phips! no—no—not without proof that she had such power.
Proof—how?
How! Ye should command her to raise the dead for proof—to raise the dead in your presence. You are consulting together; I see that you pity me. Nevertheless, I say again, that if these people are what they say they are, they should be made to prove it by such awful and irresistible proof—ah!—what are ye afraid of, judges?
We are not afraid.
Ye are afraid—ye are—and of that wretched old woman there!
What if we call for the proof now—will you endure it?
Endure it! Yes—whatever it may be. Speak to her. Bid her do her worst—I have no fear—you are quaking with fear. I defy the Power of Darkness; you would appear to tremble before it. And here I set my foot—and here I call for the proof! Are they indeed witches?—what can be easier than to overthrow such an adversary as I am? Why do ye look at me as if I were mad—you are prepared to see me drop down perhaps, or to cry out, or to give up the ghost? Why do ye shake your heads at me? What have I to fear? And why is it I beseech you, that you are not moved by the evil-eye of that poor woman? Why is it, I pray you, fathers and judges, that they alone who bear witness against her are troubled by her look?
Brother Sewall, said one of the judges who had been brought up to the law; Master Burroughs, I take it, is not of counsel for the prisoner at the bar?