With the second grand jury failure, Cosby's attention began to focus more intently on the newspaper and its printer. His next move was to order copies of the obnoxious periodical to be burned, which was done even though the Assembly and the magistrates refused to participate. Naturally the man in charge was the man maintained expressly for such purposes. Harison was all the more eager to perform the duty in that, besides the eternal ridicule the _Journal_ heaped on him, in one issue it had run a letter from the freeholders of Orange County thanking their assemblyman, Vincent Matthews, for making a vitriolic attack on him from the floor of the legislature. A copy from that issue was one of four earmarked for the flames.
The hatchetman's first instinct was to adopt strong-arm methods. He therefore went around to Peter Zenger's establishment, disburdened himself of some violent opinions ("more fit to be uttered by a drayman than a gentleman," says Peter), and threatened to cane him on the street. That was why the printer took to wearing a sword whenever he went out--the sword that gave an excuse for much heavy sarcasm in the columns of the _Gazette_.
Harison did not overlook more indirect and devious methods of dealing with his critics. He sent a couple of his creatures, John Alsop and Edward Blagg, to Orange County to spread the story that the _Journal_ with the freeholders' letter commending Matthews had been burned by the common hangman, and that the signers were to be rounded up and thrown into jail--a rumor that caused some trepidation among the solid citizens of the county.
Unfortunately Harison, misjudging the situation in his usual fashion, had jumped the gun a little too smartly. He counted on the hangman to do the job because he himself, as recorder of New York City, was supposed to persuade the magistrates to throw their authority behind the ceremonial burning. But when he met with them, he found himself in an atmosphere of chilly distrust, for they knew that Cosby was trying to kill legitimate opposition. Harison started to argue that there were sound British precedents for dealing thus with the _Journal_; was quickly shown up as grossly ignorant on that score (he put up the defense that he did not carry his lawbooks around with him); was roundly snubbed; and departed in a spasm of fury. The magistrates then forbade anyone within their authority, including the hangman, to have anything to do with the affair.