Every colony had its own movements of party. Everywhere the crown desired the colonial assemblies to provide a permanent establishment for the governor, the judges, and the other officers who held the King’s commission,—fixed salaries, and a recognized authority to carry out instructions; but everywhere the people’s representatives persistently refused to grant either salaries or any additional authority which they could not control in the interest of their own rights from session to session. They would vote salaries for only a short period, generally a year at a time; and they steadily denied the right of the crown to extend or vary the jurisdiction of the courts without their assent. Sometimes a governor like Mr. Clarke, of New York, long a resident in his colony and acquainted with its temper and its ways of thought, got what he wanted by making generous concessions in matters under his own control; and the judges, whatever their acknowledged jurisdiction, were likely to yield to the royal wishes with some servility: for they were appointed at the King’s pleasure, and not for the term of their good behavior, as in England. But power turned, after all, upon what the people’s legislature did or consented to do, and the colonists commonly spoke their minds with fearless freedom. In New York the right to speak their minds had been tested and established in a case which every colony promptly learned of. In 1734 and 1735 one John Peter Ziegler, a printer, was brought to trial for the printing of various libellous attacks on the governor and the administration of the colony,—attacks which were declared to be highly “derogatory to the character of his Majesty’s government,” and to have a tendency “to raise seditions and tumults in the province”; but he was acquitted. The libel was admitted, but the jury deemed it the right of every one to say whatever he thought to be true of the colony’s government; and men everywhere noted the verdict. [Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE NEGROES]