| Citation |
NYWJ.742.043
9 Aug 1742:12 (454)
At a general quarter session of the peace held for the city
and county of New York, before the mayor, recorder and
aldermen, on Tuesday the third day of August, 1742. Then
the recorder proceeded to his charge, as followeth.
Gentlemen of the Grand Jury; In order for you to pursue
the good intention of his Honor's letter, it is necessary,
that you make diligent inquiry into the oeconomy and
behaviour of all the mean ale houses, and tipling houses,
within this city; and to mark out all such to this court,
who make it a practice (and a most wicked and pernicious one
it is) of entertaining Negroes, and the scum and dregs of
the white people in conjunction; who, to support such
expence, are tempted, and abetted, to pilfer and steal, that
they may debauch each other, upon the plunder and spoils of
their masters and neighbours; this gives opportunities for
the most loose, debased, and abandoned wretches amongst us
to cabal and confedrate together, and ripen themselves in
these schools of mischief, for the execution of the most
daring and detestable enterprizes; I fear that there are too
many of these houses amongst us, and they are the bane and
pest of the city: 'Twas such that gave the opportunity of
brooding this most horrid and execrable conspiracy; which
infernal combination, his Honor is thus anxious to prevent.
. . [40 lines] And besides what I have already pointed out
for your consideration, it will be necessary for you also,
and highly becoming in you, to inquire concerning all
lodgers, that are strangers, within this city; obscure
people that have no visible way of subsistence: for that
popish emissaries have been dispatched from abroad, to steal
in among us, under several disguises, such as dancing
masters, school masters, phisicians, and such like, . . .
[22 lines]
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