ore
the jury: (1) were these children bewitched, (2) were the prisoners at
the bar guilty of it? As to the existence of witches, he never doubted
it. The Scriptures affirmed it, and all nations provided laws against
such persons.

On the following Sunday Baron Hale composed a meditation upon the
subject. Unfortunately it was simply a dissertation on Scripture texts
and touched upon the law at no point.

It is obvious enough to the most casual student that Sir Matthew Hale
had a chance to anticipate the work of Chief Justice Holt and missed it.
In the nineties of the seventeenth century, as we shall see, there was a
man in the chief justiceship who dared to nullify the law of James I. It
is not too much to say that Matthew Hale by a different charge to the
jury could as easily have made the current of judicial decisions run in
favor of accused witches all over England. His weight was thrown in the
other direction, and the witch-triers for a half-century to come invoked
the name of Hale.[17]

There is an interesting though hardly trustworthy story told by Speaker
Onslow[18]--writing a century later--that Hale "was afterwards much
altered in his notions as to this matter, and had great concern upon him
for what had befallen these persons." This seems the more doubtful
because there is not a shred of proof that Hale's decisions occasioned a
word of criticism among his contemporaries.[19] So great, indeed, was
the spell of his name that not even a man like John Webster dared to
comment upon his decision. Not indeed until nearly the middle of the
eighteenth century does anyone seem to have felt that the decision
called for apology.

The third noteworthy ruling in this period anent the crime of witchcraft
was made a few years later in Wiltshire by Justice Rainsford. The story,
as he himself told it to a colleague, was this: "A Witch was brought to
Salisbury and tried before him. Sir James Long came to his Chamber, and
made a heavy Complaint of this Witch, and said that if she escaped, his
Estate would not be worth any Thing; for all the People would go away.
It happen'd that the Witch was acquitted, and the Knight continued
extremely concern'd; therefore the Judge, to save the poor Gentleman's
Estate, order'd the Woman to be kept in Gaol, and that the Town should
allow her 2s. 6d. per Week; for which he was very thankful. The very
next Assizes, he came to the Judge to desire his lordship would let her
come back to the Tow