[68] The author has already stated that the court chiefly relied on
the decisions of Sir Matthew Hale, and the authorities of Keble,
Dalton and other lawyers of note who lay down “rules of conviction as
absurd as any ever adopted in New-England.” These illegal methods of
procedure the judges certainly did not receive from the clergy, or from
Perkins and Bernard, the clerical authorities recommended to them. Lord
Campbell brings similar charges against Sir Matthew Hale, in connection
with the Bury St. Edmund’s trial. He says, “he violated the plainest
rules of justice, and really was the murderer of two innocent women....
I would very readily have pardoned him for an undoubted belief in
witchcraft, and I should have considered that this belief detracted
little from his character for discernment and humanity.... There not
only was no evidence against them which ought to have weighed in the
mind of any reasonable man who believed in witchcraft; but during the
trial the imposture practised by the prosecutors was detected and
exposed. The enormous violation of justice then perpetrated has become
more revolting as the mists of ignorance, which partly covered it, have
been dispersed.” (_Lives of the Chief Justices_, vol. i. p. 561, 563.)