of the Catholic Church and its religious practices. All potential officeholders were obliged to swear that they had not received privilege from the Pope. As tensions between England and Spain escalated, the Test Act was determined to be too lenient for Catholics. By 1700 the New York anti-priest law utterly outlawed the presence of Catholic priests under penalty of life imprisonment. In 1739 war broke out between the English and Spanish. The War of Jenkins' Ear, which lasted from 1739 until 1748, was initiated after Spanish coast guards unlawfully boarded the ship of Robert Jenkins, a British merchant, and severed his ear. This incidence was particularly notable because the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht gave British a thirty-year right to supply an unlimited number of slaves to Spanish colonies with an additional 500 tons of goods each year. At the time, Spain was frequently viewed by slaves in Anglophone colonies as a liberator due to the fact the Spanish had offered freedom to any slave who joined their cause. To attack Cuba, the British recruited soldiers from New York, and reduced the number of troops normally kept there. The upper classes were nervous and tensions during the winter reminded them of the times of the Slave Revolt of 1712. The government banned slave meetings on street corners. They limited slaves in groups to three, but allowed twelve at funerals. The government reduced other rights of assembly and movement. Working-class conspiracy Initially tackling the problem of stolen goods and Hughson's tavern, the city council decided to launch an investigation. They turned it over to Daniel Horsmanden, the city recorder and one of three justices on the provincial supreme court. Horsmanden set up a grand jury that he "directed to investigate whites who sold liquor to blacksmen like John Hughson." Given legal practice then and his own inclinations, he exercised great influence in interrogations and directing the grand jury's investigations. John Hughson was a poor, illiterate cobbler who came to New York from Yonkers in the mid-1730s with his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. Unable to find work, he opened a tavern. His neighbors were offended because he sold to clients they considered unsavory. In 1738, Hughson opened a new tavern when he moved to the Hudson River waterfront, near the Trinity Churchyard. It soon became a rendezvous point for slaves, poor whites, free blacks, and soldiers. The elite were nervous about such lower