proceedings against the ministers and churches, on the charge, that, by taking the rule into their own hands, they were supplanting the magistrates and usurping the civil power. This was not in itself a bad move; but the Court wisely declined to engage in the proceedings. They neither prosecuted the case nor him, but let the whole go by. They adhered severely to the do-nothing policy. What a world of mischief would have been avoided, if all courts, everywhere, at all times, had shown an equal wisdom! Watts was allowed to vex the village, torment the minister, and perplex those who listened to him by the ingenuity and ability with which he urged his views. He continued his brawling declamations until he was tired; but, not being noticed by ministers or magistrates, no great harm was done, and he probably subsided into a quiet and respectable citizen. The prominent place Giles Corey is to occupy in the scene before us renders an account of him particularly necessary. It is not easy to describe him. He was a very singular person. His manner of life and general bearing and conversation were so disregardful, in many particulars, of the conventional proprieties of his day, that it is not safe to receive implicitly the statements made by his contemporaries. By his peculiarities of some sort, he got a bad name. In the Book of Records of the First Church in Salem, where[i.182] his public profession of religion is recorded, he is spoken of as a man of eighty years of age, and of a "scandalous life," but who made a confession of his sins satisfactory to that body. It cannot be denied that he was regarded in this light by some; but there is no reason to believe, that, in referring to the sinfulness of his past life, the old man meant more than was usually understood by such language on such occasions. He was often charged with criminal acts; but in every instance the charge was proved to be either wholly unfounded or greatly exaggerated. He had a good many contentions and rough passages; but they were the natural consequences, when a bold and strong man was put upon the defensive, or drawn to the offensive, by the habit of inconsiderate aspersion into which some of his neighbors had been led, and the bad repute put upon him by scandal-mongers. He was evidently an industrious, hard-working man. He was a person of some means, a holder of considerable property in lands and other forms. Deeds are often found on record from and to him. He owned meadows near Ipswich River. His homestead, during the last thirty years of his life, was a farm of more than a hundred acres of very valuable land, which has been in the possession of the family, now owning it, for a hundred years. The present proprietor, Mr. Benjamin Taylor, some twenty years ago, ploughed up the site of Corey's dwelling-house; the vestiges of the cellar being then quite visible. It was near the crossing of the Salem and Lowell, and Georgetown and Boston Railroads,[i.183] about three