The guy embarked toward an aspiring governmental field on an early age. He was a fickle friend in order to both Andros and Phips, who the guy turned into their straight back to the whenever its regimes folded. Charles Upham statements one to “the management, legislative, official, and you will armed forces efforts have been concentrated in the [Stoughton’s] people and you may wielded by the their hand.”55 Indeed, Stoughton are an electrical energy-eager personal in all respects, whether or not his military and you will official shortcomings imply that he was maybe not always competent to hold a lot of positions. His penchant to have energy lengthened into his legal, where the guy “held the fresh new products, the with each other, which have a heart you to definitely contains the new element of animosity,”56 according to Upham.
The newest lasting feeling of William Stoughton is that of a great Puritan Ebenezer Scrooge; sexy, handling, vindictive, and you can alone. He or she is almost an amazing profile to possess contributed the new Court regarding Oyer and you will Terminer, which became simple citizens into witches, ready getting dangling. In fact, his persistent views with the spectral research formed new behavior of one’s judge. Despite the new samples had concluded and other participants understood the new problems they’d made, Stoughton refused to acknowledge that he got enough time one error. Charles Upham produces that Courtroom regarding Oyer and you may Terminer “scatter[ed] destruction, ruin, horror, heartache and you can passing over the country,”57 and also as master justice of that tribunal, William Stoughton is the new energy at the rear of it all.