1. First look at the famous case of John Peter Zenger.[147] Here are the facts. In 1733, Mr. Zenger established a newspaper in New York--there was only one there before--called the "New York Weekly Journal," "containing the freshest Advices foreign and domestic." In some numbers of this he complained, modestly enough, of various grievances in the administration of the Province, then ruled by Governor Cosby. He said, "as matters now stand their [the People's] liberties and properties are precarious, and that Slavery is likely to be entailed on them and their posterity, if some past things be not amended." He published the remarks of some one who said he "should be glad to hear that the Assembly would exert themselves, as became them, by showing that they have the interest of their country more at heart than the gratification of any private view of any of their members, or being at all affected by the smiles or frowns of a Governor, both which ought equally to be despised when the interest of the country is at stake." "We see men's deeds destroyed, judges arbitrarily displaced, new courts erected without consent of the legislature, by which, it seems to me, trials by juries are taken away when a Governor pleases." "Who, then, in that province can call any thing his own, or enjoy any liberty longer than those in the administration will condescend to let him do it?" [Footnote 147: 3 Doc. Hist. N.Y. p. 340, 341.] In October, 1734, Chief Justice de Lancey gave a charge to the Grand-Jury, urging them to indict Mr. Zenger for a libel. He says, "It is a very high aggravation of a libel that it tends to scandalize the government by _reflecting on those who are intrusted with the administration of public affairs_, which ... has a direct tendency to breed in the public a dislike of their Governors." "If he who hath either read a libel himself, or hath heard it read by another, _do afterwards_ maliciously _read or report any part of it in the presence of others_, or _lend or show it to another, he is guilty of an unlawful publication of it._" But the Judge had not packed the Grand-Jury with sufficient care, and so no bill was found. Thereupon the Governor's Council sent a message to the General Assembly of New York, complaining of Mr. Zenger's Journal as tending "to alienate the affections of the people of this province from his majesty's government," and asking them to inquire into the said papers and the authors thereof; the Council required that the obnoxious numbers might "be _burned by the hands of the common hangman or whipper, near the pillory_." The Assembly let them lie on the table. The Court of Quarter-sessions was applied to to burn the papers; but as that body refused, the sheriff "delivered them unto the hands of _his own negro_, and ordered him to put them into the fire, which he did."