New York Burning

by Jill Lepore

  Scipio Vanbersens Negro said he would Sett his Mistresse house on fire before he would Go out to fight becomes paragraph six from the “Examination & Confession, ”

  Scipio (Van Borsom’s Negro) said, He would set “his Mistress’s House on fire before he would go out” to fight.

  Horsmanden probably directed the use of italics for emphasis, but his printer, James Parker, was responsible for introducing the two other typographical changes: italicizing people’s names and using quotation marks in the margin of every line of a quoted passage to indicate that the enclosed text was spoken by another.

  Quotation marks were by no means universally employed in the eighteenth century, and not until the very end of the century did grammar books describe and require their use in marking off another person’s words or text. Earlier in the century quotation marks were most often used to enclose quoted passages from the published writings of celebrated authors—Cicero, Milton, Pope—for readers to copy into their commonplace books. Parker’s enclosing the speech of slaves in quotation marks seems, at first glance, to lend them a certain weight and authority. But it serves another purpose: over the course of the eighteenth century quotation marks also evolved as a print equivalent of the criminal courts’ growing preference for voluntary confession. By certifying a confession’s authenticity, quotation marks effectively replaced torture as the “highest Attestation” of truth. 25 In Jack’s “Examination & Confession,” the double quotation marks along the margins of the page both credit the confession as genuine and shackle Jack in typographical handcuffs.

  Both Horsmanden and Philipse probably took notes as Jack spoke, but none of those notes survive and, in any event, what they contained was different from what Jack said. The original confession, titled “June 8, 9, 10. Confession. Jack, giving account of a large meeting of the negro conspirators, at Comfort’s house, naming each negro, and what each agreed to do,” was not a record of the interrogation; it was a summary of legally significant statements made during that interrogation, digested and abbreviated for the purposes of the prosecution. As Horsmanden admitted in the Preface to his Journal, none of the confessions were uttered in “ precisely in the same Words” in which they were recorded. Instead, “Abstracts were taken of those Evidences, and Briefs prepared for the Council concern’d in each Trial ” so that the prosecuting lawyers could direct questions to witnesses that would allow them to keep “close to the Text” on the witness stand, and deliver “in Court the Substance of the Evidence they had before given in their Depositions, Examinations, and Confessions. ”

  Who wielded the pen was rarely recorded. When Peggy Kerry confessed on May 7, someone else, possibly James Mills, wrote it down and she signed with an “X.” Horsmanden added a footnote in his Journal: “This Confession was penn’d by a Jail Secretary.” Mills brought Kerry’s confession to Daniel Horsmanden in the middle of the night, and the next day Philipse and Horsmanden signed it, probably after having read it back to Kerry. Arthur Price signed his depositions with an “A,” which Horsmanden and Philipse witnessed. Mary Burton signed with a sort of “S.” Not only was her signature witnessed by Horsmanden, but some of her depositions were written in what appears to be his handwriting.

  But, so far as it is possible to tell from the badly burned original documents, confessing slaves did not sign their confessions at all, not even with an “X.” Some of their confessions are in the handwriting of their owners, some in Horsmanden’s handwriting. Arrest warrants, too, were signed by Horsmanden, and apparently written in his hand.26

  Jack’s confession was taken in Horsmanden’s presence, and was witnessed by him.27 During those three days of interrogation, Horsmanden turned Jack’s speech into text. Comfort’s sons-in-law translated the words that came out of Jack’s mouth, and Horsmanden fixed meaning to them.

  Clarke’s copy of Jack’s confession. Courtesy of the National Archives (PRO), Kew.

  The Recorder found this process tedious. He complained, at great length, about the “Drudgery” of interrogating slave suspects and determining what, of all that they said and didn’t say, was worth writing down:

  The Trouble of examining Criminals in general, may be easily gues’d at; but the Fatigue in that of Negroes, is not to be conceived, but by those that have undergone the Drudgery: The Difficulty of bringing, and holding them to the Truth, if by Chance it starts from them, is not to be surmountedbut by the closest Attention; many of them have a great deal of Craft; their unintelligible Jargon stands them in great Stead, to conceal their Meaning; so that an Examiner must expect to encounter with much Perplexity; grope through a Maze of Obscurity; be obliged to lay hold of broken Hints, lay them carefully together, and thoroughly weigh and compare them with each other, before he can be able to see the Light, or fix those Creatures to any certain determinate Meaning.

  How that meaning became “fixed,” out of “broken Hints” and “unintelligible Jargon,” and how Horsmanden found his way through such “a Maze of Obscurity,” can best be discovered in the events of the 1730s, when Horsmanden employed much the same skills, with less success, in attempting to prosecute John Peter Zenger.

  DANIEL HORSMANDEN was something of an expert at interpreting sedition, at “fixing meaning” to words. In October 1734, Cosby had appointed him to a committee whose charge was to “point out . . . the particular Seditious paragraphs” in Zenger’s Weekly Journal. Horsmanden’s frustrations were considerable, as Alexander had gone to some lengths to write ambiguously. Of his close reading of Alexander’s essays in the Weekly Journal, Horsmanden might well have made much the same complaint he would make about interrogating slaves in 1741: “an Examiner must expect to encounter with much Perplexity; grope through a Maze of Obscurity; be obliged to lay hold of broken Hints, lay them carefully together, and thoroughly weigh and compare them with each other, before he can be able to see the Light, or fix those Creatures to any certain determinate Meaning.”

  In the Zenger case, fixing meaning was exactly the task at hand. But James Alexander argued that it was in this very act, of attaching significance to another man’s words, that the freedom of speech was most vulnerable to abuse. Alexander complained of the work Horsmanden’s committee conducted that If they will fix determinate Meanings to Sentences and even Blanks, which the Authors have not fixt, and to which other Meanings can with equal Justice be applyed; I would be glad to know wherein this Liberty of Writing consists?28

  Jack’s confession, in Horsmanden’s Journal. Collection of The New-York Historical Society.

  In spite of Alexander’s argument, the text Horsmanden’s committee selected was brought to bear at Zenger’s trial, where Bradley used it as evidence. Bradley charged that Zenger “did falsely, seditiously and scandalously print and publish, and cause to be printed and published, a certain false, malicious, seditious scandalous Libel, entituled The New York Weekly Journal . . . in which Libel . . . among other Things therein contained are these Words.” Bradley then read brief passages from Zenger’s newspaper, inserting, parenthetically, as verbal asides, their seditious meaning:

  They (the People of the City and Province of New-York meaning) think as Matters now stand that their LIBERTIES and PROPERTIES are precarious, and that SLAVERY is like to be intailed on them and their Posterity if some past Things be not amended, and this they collect from many past Proceedings, (Meaning many of the past Proceedings of His Excellency the said Governor, and of the Ministers and Officers of our said Lord the King, of and for the said Province.)

  With Horsmanden’s aid, Bradley had prepared an able case. But then the ambitious young lawyer from Purleigh sat in dismay in the Supreme Court in August 1735 as Zenger’s attorney Andrew Hamilton poked fun at Bradley for fixing meaning even to punctuation—“I had not the Art to find out (without the Help of Mr. Attorney’s Inuendo’s) that the Governor was the Person meant in every Period of that News Paper”—and argued that the only legal question at hand was not what the text meant, but whether or not it was true. “To
save the Court’s Time and Mr. Attorney’s Trouble,” Hamilton said, “I will agree, that if he can prove the Facts charged upon us, to be false, I’ll own them to be scandalous, seditious and a Libel.”

  Hamilton was ahead of the law here; there was little precedent that truth was a defense against libel. And he was on even shakier legal ground when he insisted that a jury could decide the question, which was a matter of law, not a matter of fact. With this unprecedented assertion, DeLancey had adamantly disagreed.

  Mr. Chief Justice. No, Mr. Hamilton; the Jury may find that Zenger printed and published those Papers, and leave it to the Court to judge whether they are libellous. . . .

  Mr. Hamilton. I know, may it please Your Honor, the Jury may do so; but I do likewise know, they may do otherwise. I know they have the Right beyond all Dispute, to determine both the Law and the Fact. . . . This of leaving it to the Judgment of the Court, whether the Words are libellous or not, in Effect renders Juries useless.

  While DeLancey refused to grant Hamilton this point, the jury did, especially after Hamilton delivered a stirring closing statement that itself echoed the very words Zenger was charged with having published seditiously:

  The Question before the Court and you Gentlemen of the Jury, is not of small nor private Concern, it is not the Cause of a poor Printer, nor of New-York alone, which you are now trying: No! It may in it’s Consequence, affect every Freeman that lives under a British Government on the main of America. It is the best Cause. It is the Cause of Liberty; and I make no Doubt but your upright Conduct this Day, will not only entitle you to the Love and Esteem of your Fellow-Citizens, but every Man who prefers Freedom to a Life of Slavery will bless and honour you, as Men who have baffled the Attempt of Tyranny.29

  For DeLancey and Philipse, who sat on the bench, and whose instructions to the jury were entirely ignored, Zenger’s acquittal in 1735 was a stunning defeat. For Bradley and for Horsmanden, who had helped prepare Bradley’s case, it was a gross humiliation. Six years later, in 1741, Daniel Horsmanden and Frederick Philipse controlled the courtroom. Richard Bradley again led the prosecution. And their old adversaries, Zenger’s lawyers William Smith and James Alexander, had sworn to serve on the prosecution. For Horsmanden, it was an unrivaled opportunity to consolidate the court’s power. He could make a name for himself. He could ferret out sedition, for the slave plot to overthrow the government was nothing if not seditious, and he could fix whatever meanings he liked to the words spoken by the “Creatures” who stood before him. He could write whatever “Confession” he liked for Jack, and for all the rest, and no one would oppose him. Daniel Horsmanden may not have succeeded in fixing seditious meaning to words Zenger printed in the New-York Weekly Journal—“SLAVERY is like to be intailed on them and their Posterity”—but he could fix it to Jack’s “perfectly Negro and unintelligible” speech.

  A T THE END of the first night of his three-day interrogation, Jack “desired he might be removed from the Cell where his fellow Criminals, condemn’d with him, were lodged.” As well he might. Jack’s request was granted. On the afternoon of June 9, Robin, Caesar (Peck), Cook, and Cuffee (Gomez) were taken together from City Hall, cursing Jack. Even as Jack was listing new names to his interrogators, these four men were burned at the stake. All died without confessing.

  Meanwhile, seven of the men Jack implicated were arrested. Three more, Bastian, Francis, and Curacoa Dick, had already been scheduled to be tried on June 10, along with Albany, owned by the English butcher Elizabeth Carpenter. In order that Jack might testify at that trial, he was pardoned just before the court opened its session.

  Albany, Bastian, Francis, and Curacoa Dick were tried for participating in what Bradley called “the most horrible and destructive Plot that ever was yet known in these Northern Parts of America.” For Francis, a “Spanish Negro,” an interpreter was provided. As the trial began, the prisoners successfully challenged the impaneling of Ben Thomas, on the grounds that his house was among those buildings set on fire. It was a wise move, and a good start. The challenge was allowed. But then the prisoners faced Jack’s damning testimony. Curacoa Dick, Jack said, had pledged to torch a stable owned by his master, the Dutch carpenter Cornelius Tiebout. Bastian, when asked if he would help burn the city, said he would. Sandy then testified that he had heard Francis, outside Captain Lush’s house, “talking of burning the Town and killing the People.” Albany was accused of little more than having been a friend of Cuffee (Philipse): he had stood next to him in the bucket brigade fighting the fire at Fort George. After hearing the evidence, the jury, acting swiftly, found the prisoners guilty.

  The next day, all four men were called to the courtroom and sentenced to be burned. Before he was escorted back to his cell, Bastian broke down and confessed. Because he, like Jack, was likely to prove “a Witness worthy of Credit,” Bastian was recommended for pardon.

  Cheered by the pattern of eleventh-hour confessions, the prosecutors had high hopes the next morning, Friday, June 12, when John and Sarah Hughson and Peggy Kerry were to be carried to the gallows. The execution of Sarah Hughson, the daughter, was postponed, as Horsmanden expected her to be easily broken after her parents were hanged. When the Hughsons and Kerry were taken out of jail, they, too, were urged again to confess but refused. During the slow ride out of the city, Hughson “stood up in the Cart all the Way, looking round about him as if expecting to be rescued.” With the noose around her neck, Sarah “stood like a lifeless Trunk” and “said not a Word.” Peggy “was going to say something, but the Old Woman, who hung next to her, gave her a Shove with her Hand.” All three “seem’d unconcerned at dying, and one of them curs’d the Executioner.”30 None confessed. After he was hanged, John Hughson’s lifeless body was hung in chains, next to Caesar’s rotting corpse, on the island in the midst of the Little Collect.

  But the executioner’s work was far from done. Before the sun went down, Albany, Curacoa Dick, and Francis were burned to death, denying their guilt to the last. Smoke and the smell of burning flesh wafted over the city. Back at City Hall, two prisoners awaiting trial confessed, and named names. Nine more men were arrested. The cascade of confessions had begun.

  ON JUNE 11, the judges were astonished to hear that when Bastian swore to the plot, Caesar had called to Hughson, “set his Name down.” Hughson, apparently, kept “a List of the Names of those who were to rise.” Who kept this list? the grand jury asked Tickle, a fellow slave of Albany, also owned by Elizabeth Carpenter. “Ben had it,” Tickle admitted. But Ben, arrested on June 9, denied it.

  Ben was tried and found guilty on June 13. Two days later, Horsmanden sentenced him to be burned: “You, Ben, by the Course of the Evidence appear to have been a principal Ringleader in this most horrid and devilish Conspiracy, this Master-piece of Villainy. . . . And so exact a Man were you in your Business and Trust, that, it seems, you kept a List: You say you cannot read; but so active and forward have you appeared in this Villainy, that a List of this black Band was committed to your Care.” For this, “Thou vile Wretch!,” Horsmanden warned Ben that he would be “thrown into the infernal Lake of fire and Brimstone, together with the Devil and his accursed Spirits, where the Worm never dyeth, that is, the biting, gnawing Worm of Conscience will forever be upbraiding you, and the Fire will never be quenched; but in this Torment you must remain under the most bitter Weeping, Wailing, and Gnashing of Teeth, Time without End.” (A contemporary once wrote of Horsmanden, “He was most disliked for his Asperities to the unhappy Criminals who received sentence from his Mouth.”)31 On Tuesday, June 16, Ben was burned at the stake. No list was ever found.

  It would have made Horsmanden’s work easier. Instead, on June 19, at the urging of the grand jury, and considering the crowdedness of the prison, Clarke published a proclamation promising “His Majesty’s most gracious Pardon to any and every Person and Persons, whether white People, free Negroes, Slaves, or others, who had been or were concerned in the said Conspiracy, who should on or before the first Day of Ju
ly then next, voluntarily, freely and fully discover, and Confession make, of his, her or their Confederates, Accomplices, or others concerned in the said Conspiracy, and his, her, and their Part or Share, Actings and Doings therein.”

  “Now many Negroes began to squeak,” Horsmanden noted with satisfaction. Confess, and be saved. But since every confession included still more accusations, every confession led to more arrests. Horsmanden reported: “we were apprehensive, that the Criminals would be daily multiplying on our Hands; nor could we see any Likelihood of a Stop to Impeachments; for it seemed very probable that most of the Negroes in Town were corrupted.” By June 27, there were more than a hundred slaves in the Great Gaol, which “began to be so thronged, ’twas difficult to find Room for them.” Horsmanden and Philipse resolved to expedite the extraction of confessions and the trying of criminals, and convened another meeting of the city’s Gentlemen of the Law, to divide up their work more efficiently. William Jamison had “sufficient Business upon his Hands” in his capacity as sheriff, and was spared further duties. Joseph Murray, William Smith, James Alexander, and John Chambers were “to assist in their Turns, as Council upon the several Trials.” Richard Nichols and Abraham Lodge, the most junior attorneys in the group, were assigned “to take the Negroes Confessions, and abstract them and the other Evidence into Briefs.”

  Those confessions were then recorded in a table of several columns. Having failed to find Ben’s list, the prosecution made a list of its own. Nichols and Lodge extracted fourteen confessions in a single day, another twenty-one by the end of the week. They had so many confessions to write down that they recorded them not individually, but in a ledger.