That factious cabals are secretly held several times a week in New York, at which Alexander is always present, as Morris was before his coming privately to England.... Colonel Cosby further acquaints us that Rip Van Dam, Morris, Alexander, and others of their party, appear by their behavior to be disaffected to his Majesty’s government, and are daily exciting the people to sedition and riot.[35] This passage, written while Lewis Morris was there to agitate for the contrary, comes close to a real endorsement of Governor Cosby. XII. Cosby’s Defeat Ironically, it was drawn up just a few weeks after the Governor had been condemned in New York—condemned explicitly on the score of the printing press about which he fulminated to the Board of Trade. The trial of the printer was the critical moment for all concerned, the leaders of both sides being as anxious about the outcome as was Peter Zenger himself. Cosby had done everything he could to ensure a verdict in his favor. The defense countered by bringing in the leading attorney of Philadelphia, perhaps of the colonies, Andrew Hamilton. The common people of the city thronged the galleries as the proceedings began. What happened during that momentous August day is one of the moving, triumphant pages of American history. We can still feel, in reading the text of the trial, the emotional tremor that vibrated in the courtroom at the clash of two powerful forces. We can still follow Andrew Hamilton as he stalks his opponents like an implacable duelist with a rapier, pinking now one and now the other as they venture to challenge him. We can understand the hot befuddlement of Chief Justice Delancey and Attorney General Bradley when they found their prepared defenses useless against a kind of attack they never expected; we can understand their moral disintegration when the verdict went against them, and they had to think what to say when they reported to the governor’s mansion. How must they have felt when the crowd began a delirious demonstration to show its delight that Peter Zenger was a free man? How must they have felt, a few hours later, when they heard that Andrew Hamilton was being treated like a hero by the magistrates of the city?