New York - The Novel

household, might be heard on any day of the week.
    “‘He who destroys a good book, kills reason itself,’” Kate immediately chimed in.
    Their host looked at them both, and shook his head.
    “It sounds familiar, but what are you quoting?” he asked genially.
    Kate was surprised he would need reminding. The words came from John Milton, author of
Paradise Lost
. Not from a poem, but a pamphlet, the greatest defense of Free Speech and the freedom of the press that was ever penned.
    “It’s from Milton’s
Areopagitica,”
she said.
    “Ah, Milton,” said her host.
    But young John’s face contracted into a frown.
    “Harry who?” he asked.
    It came unbidden. She did not even have time to think. She burst out laughing.
    And young John Master blushed, and looked ashamed.

    “Well,” said her father cheerfully, as they walked back to their lodgings, “the dinner could have been worse. Though I’m sorry your New York kinsmen turn out to be smugglers.”
    “Mr. Master seems well informed,” she suggested.
    “Hmm. In his way, I dare say. The boy, I’m afraid,” he added confidently, “is beyond redemption.”
    “Perhaps,” she ventured, “you are too harsh.”
    “I think not.”
    “I liked him, Father,” she said, “very much.”

    The court was on the main floor of the City Hall on Wall Street. The courtroom was a light-filled, lofty space. The two judges, Philipse and Delancey, wigged and robed in scarlet, sat enthroned upon a dais. The jury sat together on two benches to their left. The crowd of people, of all sorts, were seated around the sides, and on the floor of the hall. It might have been a Protestant congregation about to hear a preacher. In the center, before the judges, was the dock, like a box pew, for the accused. He had not far to come, for the cells were in the basement of the building.
    Kate and her father had secured good seats in the front row. She looked around the hall eagerly, taking in the scene. But most interesting of all to her was to witness the change in her father. To the outside observer, he looked the quiet, careful lawyer that he was; but to Kate, his unwonted paleness, the alertness in his eye, and the taut nervousness of his face told a different story. She’d never seen her father so eager in her life.
    Bradley, the Attorney General, in wig and long black gown, plump and confident, was nodding briskly to people here and there. The court had appointed a lawyer named Chambers, competent enough, to defend the printer. The Attorney General nodded to Chambers, too, as though to say: “It is not your fault, sir, that you are about to be crushed.”
    And now there was a stir. Through a small door at the back of the court, two officers like huge, black bumblebees were bringing Zenger in. How small he seemed between them, a neat little fellow in a blue coat,who nonetheless kept his head up bravely as they led him to his box, and shut him in.
    The charge was read. The Attorney General rose.
    Kate had been to trials before. She knew what to expect. It did not take the lawyer long to say that Zenger was a “seditious person” guilty of libels designed to scandalise and vilify the good Governor Cosby. The jury listened. She could not tell what they thought.
    Then Chambers rose and said a few lackluster words in the printer’s defense. She saw her father frown. “You’d have thought,” he whispered in her ear, “that Zenger’s backers would have given him better help than this.”
    But just then, something strange occurred. An old gentleman, who had been sitting quietly near the back, suddenly stood up and made his way stiffly forward.
    “If it please Your Honors, I am retained to represent the accused.”
    “And who are you?” one of the judges asked irritably.
    “The name’s Hamilton, Your Honor. Andrew Hamilton. Of Philadelphia.”
    And now Kate saw her father start, and lean forward excitedly.
    “Who is he?” she asked.
    “The finest trial lawyer in America,” he answered in a low voice, while the whole court buzzed.
    It was clear that the judges and the Attorney General had been completely taken by surprise, but there was nothing they could do about it. They were still more astonished when the Philadelphia lawyer calmly told them: “My client does not deny that he published the offending articles.” The Attorney, therefore, had no need to call any witnesses. This was followed by a long silence, until, looking rather puzzled now, Attorney Bradley stood