It will not be denied that a freeholder in the Province of New York has as good a right to the sole and separate use of his lands as a freeholder in England, who has a right to bring an action of trespass against his neighbor for suffering his horse or cow to come and feed upon his land or eat his corn, whether enclosed or not. Yet I believe it would be looked upon as a strange attempt for one man here to bring an action against another whose cattle and horses feed upon his grounds that are not enclosed, or indeed for eating and treading down his corn, if that were not enclosed. Numberless are the instances of this kind that might be given to show that what is good law at one time and in one place is not so at another time and in another place. So that I think the law seems to expect that in these parts of the world men should take care, by a good fence, to preserve their property from the injury of unruly beasts. And perhaps there may be a good reason why men should take the same care to make an honest and upright conduct a fence and security against the injury of unruly tongues. MR. ATTORNEY. I don’t know what the gentleman means by comparing cases of freeholders in England with freeholders here. What has this case to do with actions of trespass or men’s fencing their ground? The case before the Court is whether Mr. Zenger is guilty of libeling His Excellency the Governor of New York, and indeed the whole administration of the government. Mr. Hamilton has confessed the printing and publishing, and I think nothing is plainer than that the words in the information are “scandalous, and tend to sedition, and to disquiet the minds of the people of this Province.” If such papers are not libels, I think it may be said that there can be no such thing as a libel. MR. HAMILTON. May it please Your Honor, I cannot agree with Mr. Attorney. For although I freely acknowledge that there are such things as libels, yet I must insist at the same time that what my client is charged with is not a libel. And I observed just now that Mr. Attorney, in defining a libel, made use of the words “scandalous, seditious, and tend to disquiet the people.” But (whether with design or not I will not say) he omitted the word “false.” MR. ATTORNEY. I think that I did not omit the word “false.” But it has been said already that it may be a libel notwithstanding that it may be true. MR. HAMILTON. In this I must still differ with Mr. Attorney. For I depend upon it that we are to be tried upon this information now before the Court and the jury, and to which we have pleaded “Not guilty.” By it we are charged with printing and publishing “a certain false, malicious, seditious, and scandalous libel.” This word “false” must have some meaning, or else how came it there? I hope Mr. Attorney will not say he put it there by chance, and I am of the opinion that his information would not be good without it.