The petition of John Peter Zenger was presented to the House and read, setting forth, that he having been chosen Collector of sundry public Taxes in the city of New York, was prevented from gathering the same, when they should have been collected, by reason he fell under some Trouble from his creditors at that time, that by Removal of some and Insolvency of others, rated in the said Taxes, there is about-Twenty three pounds irrecoverable; that, including the said sum, he remains accountable to the Province. for the sum of Forty pounds and upwards, for which he is informed Writs are issued against him, And that he being unable to pay the same, has been forced to keep out of the way, but pro. poses to discharge in his way of Printing, at the most moderate and reasonable _ wages. And therefore prays that Prosecution against him be stayed, and he employed in printing for the Publick. Ordeted, That the said Petition lie on the Table."'--N. Y. Assembly Journal; I., 627, 636

HON. JAMES DE LANCEY. 1043

and Council, dated May 15, 1699.1 A formal denial of its existence deliberately made was therefore a gross contempt of court, and the Chief Justice from the bench warned the counsel of the consequences. But they persisted in tendering the exceptions, upon which the court made an order striking their names from its rolls and excluding them from further practice. Zenger being unable to procure other counsel, the Court assigned him Mr. Joseph Murray, with whom the silenced lawyers associated Mr. Hamilton of Philadelphia, who made so artful an address to the Jury at the trial a few days afterwards "that," in the words of one of their own friends,? "when he left his client in those hands, such was the fraudful dexterity of the orator, and the severity of his invectives upon the Governor and his adherents, that the Jury missing the true issue before them, they, as if triers of their rulers, rather than of Zenger, pronounced the criminal innocent because they believed them to be guilty."