198 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

be carried out. Accordingly the offending numbers
of the Journal were burned by a negro slave of the
sheriff in the presence of Francis Harrison, the re-
corder, and some other partizans of Cosby, the
magistrates declining to be present at the cere-
mony. Whatever satisfaction the Governor and
his adherents could gain from the burning of these
copies of the Journal was theirs; but their action
served only to make them both more ridiculous
and more despicable in the eyes of the people.

Not long after this episode Zenger was arrested
upon order of the Council and thrown into the jail,
which was at that time in the City Hall on the site
of the present United States Sub-Treasury building
on Wall Street. Zenger was denied the use of pens,
ink, or paper. The grand jury refused to indict
him. But Cosby's attorney-general filed an "in-
formation" against Zenger for "false, scandalous,
malicious and seditious libels."

Public interest was now transferred from Van
Dam to Zenger, and the people saw him as their
representative, robbed of his right of free speech
and imprisoned on an "information" which was in
form and substance an indictment without action
of a grand jury. Months elapsed while Zenger was
kept in prison. His counsel, Smith and Alexander,