He then insisted that it was clear, by the laws of God and man, that it was a very great offense to speak evil of, or to revile, those in authority over us. And that Mr. Zenger had offended in a most notorious and gross manner, in scandalizing His Excellency our governor, who is the king’s immediate representative and the supreme magistrate of this Province. For can there be anything more scandalous said of a governor than what is published in those papers? Nay, not only the Governor but both the Council and the Assembly are scandalized. For there it is plainly said that “as matters now stand, their liberties and properties are precarious, and that slavery is like to be entailed on them and their posterity.” And then again Mr. Zenger says, “The Assembly ought to despise the smiles or frowns of a governor; that he thinks the law is at an end; that we see men’s deeds destroyed, judges arbitrarily displaced, new courts erected without consent of the legislature; that it seems that trials by jury are taken away when a governor pleases; and that none can call anything his own longer than those in the administration will condescend to let him do it.” Mr. Attorney added that he did not know what could be said in defense of a man that had so notoriously scandalized the Governor and the principal magistrates and officers of the government by charging them with depriving the people of their rights and liberties, taking away trial by jury, and, in short, putting an end to the law itself. If this was not a libel, he said, he did not know what was one. Such persons as will take those liberties with governors and magistrates he thought ought to suffer for stirring up sedition and discontent among the people. He concluded by saying that the government had been very much traduced and exposed by Mr. Zenger before he was taken notice of; that at last it was the opinion of the Governor and the Council that he ought not to be suffered to go on to disturb the peace of the government by publishing such libels against the Governor and the chief persons in the government; and therefore they had directed this prosecution to put a stop to this scandalous and wicked practice of libeling and defaming His Majesty’s government and disturbing His Majesty’s peace. Mr. Chambers then summed up to the jury, observing with great strength of reason on Mr. Attorney’s defect of proof that the papers in the information were false, malicious, or seditious, which it was incumbent on him to prove to the jury, and without which they could not on their oaths say that they were so as charged.