to the council that the governor be requested to offer rewards for the apprehension of the incendiaries and all persons implicated, and that the city pay the cost, etc.  It was accordingly resolved that the lieutenant-governor be requested to offer a reward of one hundred pounds current money of the Province to any white person, and pardon, if concerned; and twenty pounds, freedom, and, if concerned, pardon to any slave (the master to be paid twenty-five pounds); and to any free Negro, Mulatto, or Indian, forty-five pounds and pardon, if concerned.  The mayor and the recorder (Horsemanden), called upon Lieut.-Gov.  Clark, and laid the above resolve before him.

The city was now in a state of great excitement.  The air was peopled with the wildest rumors.

On Monday the 13th of April each alderman, assistant, and constable searched his ward.  The militia was called out, and sentries posted at the cross-streets.  While the troops were patrolling the streets, the aldermen were examining Negroes in reference to the origin of the fires.  Nothing was found.  The Negroes denied all knowledge of the fires or a plot.

On the 21st of April, 1741, the Supreme Court convened.[246] Judges Frederick Phillipse and Daniel Horsemanden called the grand jury.  The members were as follows:  Robert Watts, merchant, foreman; Jeremiah Latouche, Joseph Read, Anthony Rutgers, John M’Evers, John Cruger, jun., John Merrit, Adoniah Schuyler, Isaac DePeyster, Abraham Ketteltas, David Provoost, Rene Hett, Henry Beeckman, jun., David van Horne, George Spencer, Thomas Duncan, and Winant Van Zandt,—­all set down as merchants,—­a respectable, intelligent, and influential grand jury!  Judge Phillipse informed the jury that the people “have been put into many frights and terrors,” in regard to the fires; that it was their duty to use “all lawful means” to discover the guilty parties, for there was “much room to suspect” that the fires were not accidental.  He told them that there were many persons in jail upon whom suspicion rested; that arson was felony at common law, even though the fire is extinguished, or goes out itself; that arson was a deep crime, and, if the perpetrators were not apprehended and punished, “who can say he is safe, or where will it end?” The learned judge then went on to deliver a moral lecture against the wickedness of selling “penny drams” to Negroes, without the consent of their masters.  In conclusion, he charged the grand jury to present “all conspiracies, combinations and other offences.”

It should be kept in mind that Mary Burton was only a witness in the burglary case already mentioned.  Up to that time there had been no fires.  The fires, and wholesale arrests of innocent Negroes, followed the robbery.  But the grand jury called Mary Burton to testify in reference to the fires.  She refused to be sworn.  She was questioned concerning the fires, but gave no answer.  Then the proclamation of the mayor, offering protection, pardon, freedom,