THE NEW YORK WEEKLY JOURNAL, PRINTED BY JOHN PETER ZENGER
Fine and scarce pre -Revolutionary War newspaper. "The New-York Weekly Journal, Containing the freshest Advices, Foreign, and Domestic" (New York: printed by John Peter Zenger), April 29, 1734, no. 26, 4pp. 4to., an early issue of the first American newspaper to openly criticize the colonial government. Most of the paper is taken up with criticism of Zenger's former employer and partner, William Bradford, the first printer in New York, whose conservatism and sycophantic approach to the injustices of colonial administration Zenger strongly opposed. JOHN PETER ZENGER (1697-1746) was born in Germany and emigrated to New York in 1710. Zenger used his paper to criticize the colonial governor of New York, William Cosby, who used his authority to replace the Chief Justice of the colony with his own appointee, thereby securing a larger salary for himself. Zenger's controversial article finally earned him a charge of libel. His lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, attempted to establish a precedent that a defamatory statement cannot be considered libelous if it could be proven to be true. The jury agreed, and returned a verdict of not guilty, although the precedent was not established, as evidenced by the later libel trial of Harry Croswell. Zenger's case became an important milestone of freedom of the press in America. Disbound, minor toning, else very good.