Persons who would not confess were tied up and put to a sort of torture which was effective in securing new revelations.
In the case of Giles Corey the horrors of the persecution culminated.
Seeing that his doom was certain, and wishing to preserve his family from attainder and their property from confiscation, he refused to plead.

Though eighty years of age, he was therefore pressed to death, and when, in his last agonies, his tongue was pressed out of his mouth, the sheriff with his walking-stick thrust it back again.
Everything was made to contribute to the orthodox view of possession.

On one occasion, when a cart conveying eight condemned persons to the place of execution stuck fast in the mire, some of the possessed declared that they saw the devil trying to prevent the punishment of his associates.
Confessions of witchcraft abounded; but the way in which these confessions were obtained is touchingly exhibited in a statement afterward made by several women.

In explaining the reasons why, when charged with afflicting sick persons, they made a false confession, they said: "...

By reason of that suddain surprizal, we knowing ourselves altogether Innocent of that Crime, we were all exceedingly astonished and amazed, and consternated and affrighted even out of our Reason; and our nearest and dearest Relations, seeing us in that dreadful condition, and knowing our great danger, apprehending that there was no other way to save our lives,...