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"Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger" | |
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Mr. Chambers, of Council for the Defendant. I humbly move Your Honours that we may have Justice done by the Sherrif, and that he may return the Names of the Jurors in the same Order as they were struck. Chief Justice. How is that? Are they not so returned? Mr. Cb. No they are not: For some of the Names that were last set down in the Pannel, are now placed first. Ch. J. Make out that, and you shall be righted. Mr. Cb. I have the Copy of the Pannel in my Hand, as the Jurors were struck, and if the Clerk will produce the Original signed by Mr. Attorney and my self, Your Honour will see our Complaint is just. Ch. J. Clerk, is it so? Look upon that Copy; is it a true Copy of the Pannel as it was struck? Clerk. Yes, I believe it is. Ch. J. How came the Names of the Jurors to be misplaced in the Pannel annexed to the Venire? Sherif. I have returned the Jurors in the same Order in which the Clerk gave them to me. Ch. J. Let the Names of the Jurors be ranged in the Order they were struck, agreeable to the Copy here in Court. Which was done accordingly. And the Jury, whose Names were as follows, were called and sworn. Harmanus Rutgers, Stanly Holmes, Edward Man, John Bell, Samuel Weaver, Andries Marsibalk, Egbert van Borsom, Thomas Hunt, Form. Benjamin Hilbreth, Abraham Keteltas, John Goelet, Hercules Wendover. Mr. Attorney General opened the Information, which was as follows.
Mr. Attorney. May it please Your Honours, and you Gentlemen of the Jury; the Information now before the Court, and to which the Defendant Zenger has pleaded Not Guilty, is an Information for printing and publishing a False, Scandalous, and Seditious Libel, in which His Excellency the Governour of this Province, who is the King's immediate Representative here, is greatly and unjustly scandalized, as a Person that has no Regard to Law nor Justice; with much more, as will appear upon reading the Informations. This of Libelling is what has always been discouraged as a Thing that tends to create Differences among Men, ill Blood among the People, and oftentimes great Bloodshed between the Party Libelling and the Party Libelled. There can be no Doubt but |
you Gentlemen of the Jury will have the same ill Opinion of such Practices, as the Judges have always shewn upon such Occasions: But I shall say no more at this Time, until you hear the Information, which is as follows.
Of the Term of January, in the Eighth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King GEORGE the second, &c. New-York, St. BE it remembered, That Richard Bradly, Esq: Attorney General of Our Sovereign Lord the King, for the Province of New-York, who for Our said Lord the King in this Part prosecutes, in his own proper Person comes here into the Court of Our said Lord the King, and for Our said Lord the King gives the Court here to understand, and be informed, That John Peter Zenger, late of the City of New-York, Printer, (being a seditious Person; and a frequent Printer and Publisher of false News and seditious Libels, and wickedly and maliciously devising the Government of Our said Lord the King of this His Majesty's Province of New-York, under the Administration of His Excellency William Cosby, Esq; Captain General and Governour in Chief of the said Province, to traduce, scandalize and vilify, and His Excellency the said Governour, and the Ministers and Officers of Our said Lord, the King of and for the said Province to bring into Suspicion and the ill Opinion of the Subjects of Our said Lord the King residing within the Province) the Twenty eighth Day of January, in the seventh Year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord George the second, by the Grace of God of Great-Britain, France and Ireland, King Defender of the Faith, &c. at the City of New-York, did falsly, seditiously and scandalously print and publish, and cause to be printed and published, a certain false, malicious, seditious scandalous Libel, entitled, The New-York Weekly Journal, containing the freshest Advices, foreign and domestick; in which Libel (of and concerning His excellency the said Governour, and the Ministers and Officers of Our said Lord the King, of and for the said Province) among other Things therein contained are these Words, 'Your Appearance in Print at last, gives a Pleasure to many, tho' most wish you had come fairly into the open Field, and not appeared behind Retrenchments |
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 The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York | |