The _Journal_’s anti-Cosby campaign touched off the first of the many newspaper wars that have raged on the banks of the Hudson. As often as it attacked did the _Gazette_ rush to the rescue amid an acrimonious exchange of accusations and insults. Thus, referring to the sentiments of the people of New York toward their Governor: The _Journal_. They think, as matters now stand, that their liberties and properties are precarious, and that slavery is like to be entailed on them and their posterity if some past things be not amended.[19] The _Gazette_. Now give me leave to say what I have reason to believe some of the people of this City and Province think in relation to that paragraph in Zenger’s paper. They think it is an aggravated libel.[20] In such a tone did New York’s two newspapers carry on their duel, one which concedes nothing to the later age of yellow journalism in its furious charges and countercharges of deceit, ignorance, calumny, and slander. The above onset and riposte stand out because the passage from the _Journal_ sounds like Alexander himself, while Governor Cosby agreed with the _Gazette_ that it was “libelous” and made it part of the formal indictment of Peter Zenger. Both sides went at it hammer and tongs. In the _Journal_, where Cosby is called a “Nero,” his kept journalist is his “spaniel.” The _Gazette_ retorts with epithets like “seditious rogues” and “disaffected instigators of arson and riot,” and proposes that the name “Zenger” be turned into a common-noun synonym for “liar.” The men behind the opposition newspaper made a point of referring to Harison obliquely in satirical mock “advertisements” like these: A large spaniel of about five foot five inches high has lately strayed from his kennel with his mouth full of fulsome panegyrics, and in his ramble dropped them in the _New York Gazette_. When a puppy he was marked thus (FH), and a cross in the middle of his forehead; but the mark being worn out, he has taken upon him in a heathenish manner to abuse mankind by imposing a great many gross falsehoods on them. Whoever will strip the said panegyrics of their fulsomeness, and send the beast back to his kennel, shall have the thanks of all honest men, and all reasonable charges.[21] The spaniel strayed away is of his own accord returned to his kennel, from whence he begs leave to assure the public that all those fulsome panegyrics were dropped in the _New York Gazette_ by the express orders of his master; and that for the gross falsehoods he is charged with imposing upon mankind, he is willing to undergo any punishment the people will impose on him if they can make full proof in any Court of Record that any one individual person in the Province (that knew him) believed any of them.[22]