The friends of Bayley, while they yielded to his determination to withdraw from his disagreeable position, never relinquished the hope to get him back, but renewed a struggle to that end, whenever a vacancy occurred in the village ministry. With that object in view, they were unwise and unjust enough to cherish aversion to every one who succeeded him, and thus kept alive the fatal elements of division. But it is due to[i.255] him to say, that he does not appear to have been at all responsible for the course of his friends. Although retaining his property in the village, and often residing there, there is no indication that he had a hand in subsequent proceedings, or was in the slightest degree connected with the troubles that afterwards arose. Arts were used to inveigle him into the witchcraft prosecutions: his resentments, if he had any, were invoked; but in vain. He resisted attempts, which were made with more effect upon one of his successors, to rouse his passions against parties accused. He kept himself free from the whole affair. His name nowhere appears as complainant, witness, or actor in any shape. He was, so far as the evidence goes, a peaceable, prudent, kind, and good man; and if the people of Salem Village had been wise enough, or been permitted, to settle him, the world might never have known that such a place existed. George Burroughs, in November, 1680, was engaged to preach at Salem Village. He is supposed to have been born in Scituate; but his origin is as uncertain as his history was sad, and his end tragical. He was a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1670. What little is known of him shows that he was a man of ability and integrity. Papers on file in the State House prove, that, in the district of Maine, where he lived and preached before and after his settlement at the village, he was regarded with confidence by his neighbors, and looked up to as a friend and counsellor. Certain incidents are related, which prove that he was[i.256] self-denying, generous, and public-spirited, laboring in humility and with zeal in the midst of great privations, sharing the exposures of his people to Indian violence, and experiencing all the sufferings of an unprotected outpost. In 1676, while preaching at Casco,—now Portland,—the entire settlement was broken up by an Indian assault. Thirty-two of the inhabitants were killed or carried into captivity. Mr. Burroughs escaped to an island in the bay, from which he was rescued by timely aid from the mainland. He wrote an account of the catastrophe, communicated by Brian Pendleton to the Governor and Council at Boston. In 1683 he was again at Casco; and, again driven off by the Indians in 1690, transferred his labors to Wells. A grant of one hundred and fifty acres of land was made to him, included in the site of the present city of Portland. As population began to thicken near the spot, the town applied to him to relinquish a part of it, other lands to be given him in exchange.