Yea—counsel, judge—counsel!
You would allow the guilty every possible chance of escape.
Even so, judge! every possible chance of escape. For the guilty have some rights to guard—rights the more precious for being so few, and for being in perpetual risk of outrage; the more to be guarded Sir, because they are the rights and the privileges of the wicked, who have nothing to hope from the public sympathy, no hope of pity, no hope of charity. Even so, Judge! for the innocent are liable to appear otherwise. Even so—for till the trial be over, how do we know who is guilty and who not? How do we know—how is it possible for us to know, till the accused have undergone their trial, whether they are, or are not unjustly charged? For the innocent as well as for the guilty therefore, would I have counsel for the accused—yea, counsel, whatever were the charge, and however probable it might appear—nay the more, in proportion both to the probability and to the magnitude of the charge.
A fine theory that Sir. You have been abroad to much purpose, it would appear.
Even so judge—even so. Such is my theory, and I have been abroad, I believe, to much purpose; for if men are to die by the law, I would have them appear to die by the law. By the law, judge—not by popular caprice, popular indignation or arbitrary power. I would leave no ground for sorrow, none for self-reproach, none for misgiving, either to the public or to that portion of the public who have participated more immediately in the awful business of death. I would have no such case on record as that of Mary Dyer.... I would have no Elizabeth Hutchinson offered up—no such trials, no such graves, no such names for the people to be afraid of and sorry for, ages and ages after the death of a miserable infatuated woman—a prophetess or a witch, forsooth—
George Burroughs!
—A prophetess or a witch I say!—after she has been put to death no man is able to say wherefore.
George Burroughs!
Who speaks?
George Burroughs, beware! cried a female who stood in a dark part of the house, with her head muffled up—a deep shadow was about her and a stillness like death.