Whereupon the said Attorney General of the king prays the advisement of the Court here, in the premises, and the due process of law against the said John Peter Zenger.
To this information the defendant has pleaded “Not guilty,” but we are ready to prove it.
Mr. Chambers has not been pleased to favor me with his notes, so I cannot, for fear of doing him an injustice, pretend to set down his argument. But here Mr. Chambers set forth very clearly the nature of a libel, the great allowances that ought to be made for what men speak or write, that in all libels there must be some particular persons so clearly pointed out that no doubt must remain about who is meant, that he was in hopes Mr. Attorney would fail in his proof as to this point. And therefore desired that he would go on to examine his witnesses.
Then Mr. Hamilton, who at the request of some of my friends was so kind as to come from Philadelphia to assist me at the trial, spoke.
MR. HAMILTON. May it please Your Honor, I am concerned in this cause on the part of Mr. Zenger, the defendant. The information against my client was sent me a few days before I left home, with some instructions to let me know how far I might rely upon the truth of those parts of the papers set forth in the information, and which are said to be libelous.
Although I am perfectly of the opinion with the gentleman who has just now spoken on the same side with me, as to the common course of proceedings—I mean in putting Mr. Attorney upon proving that my client printed and published those papers mentioned in the information—yet I cannot think it proper for me (without doing violence to my own principles) to deny the publication of a complaint, which I think is the right of every freeborn subject to make when the matters so published can be supported with truth.
Therefore I shall save Mr. Attorney the trouble of examining his witnesses to that point. I do (for my client) confess that he both printed and published the two newspapers set forth in the information—and I hope that in so doing he has committed no crime.
MR. ATTORNEY. Then if Your Honor pleases, since Mr. Hamilton has confessed the fact, I think our witnesses may be discharged. We have no further occasion for them.
MR. HAMILTON. If you brought them here only to prove the printing and publishing of these newspapers, we have acknowledged that, and shall abide by it.
Here my journeyman and two sons (with several others subpoenaed by Mr. Attorney to give evidence against me) were discharged, and there was silence in the Court for some time.