New York - The Novel

wretched law of libel was as uncertain as it was bad. Almost anything you said could be twisted and turned into libel. Even a complaint against abuse, which was every man’s natural right.
    By this means, a governor who did not wish to be criticized could use the law as a weapon, and place himself above the law. It was a legally sanctioned abuse of power. And what stood between this tyranny and the liberties of a free people? They, the jury. Nothing else.
    “The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death,” he proclaimed. The case was not about a printer in New York, it was about their right, and their duty, to protect free men against arbitrary power, as many other brave men had done before them.
    Now, he told the jury, it was up to them. The choice was in their hands. And with that, he sat down.
    The judge was not pleased. He told the jury that despite anything the Philadelphia lawyer said, they should find the printer guilty. The jury retired.
    As the court broke out into a hum of conversation, and Zenger continued to sit upright in his box, Kate’s father explained to her.
    “I did not realize myself what he was up to. He made the jury furious that the common-sense defense of Zenger—that the poor devil did no more than say the truth—was to be disallowed. And then he played the card he had intended to play all along. It’s called Jury Nullification. A jury has the right to decide a case, notwithstanding anything they have heard regarding a defendant’s guilt, or the state of the law. It is the last and only defense against bad laws. After a jury has refused to convict, the law does not change, but few prosecutors want to bring a similar action, for fear that future juries will do the same thing. That is the tactic old Hamilton has just deployed. And brilliantly.”
    “Will it work?”
    “We’re about to find out, I think.”
    For the jury was already returning. They filed into place. The judge asked if they had a verdict. The foreman said that they had. He was told to give it.
    “Not guilty, Your Honor,” he said firmly.
    The judge cast his eyes to heaven. And the people in the courtroom erupted with glee.
    Eliot Master looked so happy as they left the court that Kate put her arm through his—a familiarity she would not have attempted normally, but one which was accepted.
    “This has been an important day in our history,” her father remarked. “I am glad, Kate, that you were here to see it. I think that tomorrow, we may safely depart for Boston. Indeed,” he continued, with a wry smile, “I have only one regret.”
    “What is it, Father?”
    “That tonight, we must sup with our cousins.”

    Young John Master turned into Broadway. He passed several people he knew, but gave them the briefest nod he could and kept his head down. As he passed Trinity Church, he glanced up. Its handsome Anglican tower seemed to look down on him with contempt. He wished he’d come up some other street.
    He didn’t need reminding he was worthless.
    The buttoned-up man from Boston had made that pretty clear yesterday. Politely, of course. But when the lawyer had learned that he’d read
Robinson Crusoe
, his patronizing “Well then, that is something” had saidit all. The Boston man thought he was an idiot. John was used to it. The vicar at their church, the principal of his school, they were all the same.
    His father had always let him work in the business and enjoy the company of the mariners with whom he was comfortable. But only because he was kind, and accepted him as he was.
    His father and his teachers would have been surprised to know that, secretly, John had sometimes tried to study. If he could acquire some knowledge, he’d thought, one day he’d surprise them all. But it was no good. He would stare at the book, but the words would arise from the page in a meaningless blur; he would fidget, glance out of the window, look at the page again; try as he might, nothing ever seemed to make sense. Even when he did read a few pages, he’d find that soon afterward, he could remember nothing of what he’d read.
    God knows his father was no scholar either. John had watched him bluffing the Boston lawyer and his daughter as they talked about philosophers and the like. But at least his father knew enough to bluff. And even his father had been embarrassed when he hadn’t heard of Addison’s
Cato
. The note of reproach in his father’s voice had made him so ashamed.
    It wasn’t as if these