With the lines thus drawn up, the first blows were struck on October 29,
1733. On that day was held the election of an assemblyman for
Westchester, and the candidate of the Popular party was Lewis Morris.
Governor Cosby, desperately anxious to defeat this formidable
antagonist, threw everything he had to the support of his own man,
William Forster. The result was the famous poll on the green of St.
Paul’s Church, Eastchester.[1]
The two candidates, arriving with motley arrays of their followers
behind them, were like commanding generals bound for battle. The image
is not at all inexact, for Westchester was a stronghold of the
Delancey-Philipse element of the Court party, and both sides were able
to count on a disciplined mass of voters.
The sheriff presiding over the election was, like many officials, a
creature of the Governor. Cosby evidently had ordered him to make sure,
in one way or another, that the result went against Morris—in other
words, to rig the election if necessary. When it became clear that
Morris had a majority of the voters with him, the sheriff intervened and
tried to snatch a victory by disfranchising one whole body of the
population.
It had been customary to let Quakers vote without taking the oath, for
by their religion they were forbidden to “swear.” Instead they were
allowed to “affirm.” That custom gave Cosby’s sheriff a loophole. He
decreed that no one who would not take the oath should be allowed to
cast a ballot, and so he ruled the Friends out of the election, hoping
that this maneuver would change the result. In fact it did not, for even
without this group of his supporters Morris won a resounding victory.
The election was momentous beyond the fact that it returned to the
Assembly a veteran of rough-and-tumble politics who was sure to throw
his weight against the Governor wherever he could, and that it hardened
the Quakers against the regime. It revealed Cosby as completely
unscrupulous in dealing with his opponents, as a man who, occupying the
position of chief upholder of the law, had no hesitation in playing fast
and loose with it when he thought he could gain some advantage. Before
the election he had been guilty of many questionable things, such as the
legal attack on Van Dam and the removal of Lewis Morris from the Supreme
Court, but these were at least debatable, with something to be said for
him even if he could not be exculpated. Now his conduct was not
debatable. It was plainly unethical, if not technically illegal.
The Westchester election was, in more ways than one, a triumph for the
Popular party, which had impelled Cosby into a crime that was at once
manifest and useless, revealing him as stupid as well as criminal.
The furor had hardly begun to die away before there burst upon the
Governor the bombshell of an opposition newspaper. The _New York Weekly
Journal_, edited by James Alexander and printed by Peter Zenger, was the
first _political independent_ ever published on this continent. The men
behind it created a journalistic category new to American experience
when they deliberately decided to make a continuing open battle with
Governor Cosby the rationale of their editorial policy. They published a
specifically political newspaper, no arm of the authorities or toady to
headquarters, but the mouthpiece of those who were challenging the
representative of the king in their Colony. There was nothing hesitant
or sporadic about their undertaking. The paper came out every Monday,
always truculent and always propagandizing one point of view in
politics. The political issue was the only _raison d’être_ of
publication. Everything else—foreign news, essays, verses, squibs,
advertisements—was filler.
Here was something original for this side of the ocean, an experiment in
journalism as critical as ever was attempted by any members of our
fourth estate; and successful, for the _Journal_ lived and throve and
became the ancestor of the great American political organs of modern
times.
Now for all of this James Alexander was more responsible than any other
man. From his literary remains we know that he was in full possession of
the theory of a free press long before the occasion rose for him to
implement it as a working editor, and that, the occasion having risen,
he wrote much of the copy for the opposition newspaper and blue-penciled
virtually all the contributions bearing on the feud with the Governor.
This pivotal figure of American history was Scottish by birth, heir to
the title of Earl of Stirling (a title his son made illustrious in the
patriotic annals of the Revolution). He studied mathematics and science
in Edinburgh, but compromised his future there by joining the Jacobite
rising that attempted to place the Old Pretender on the British throne
in 1715. After the fiasco, Alexander, like so many of his class, found
Scotland too hot for him. He fled to America, studied law, went into
politics, and eventually entered the Councils of both New York and New
Jersey. Mathematician, scientist, lawyer, and politician, he was one of
the most extraordinary men of his generation, a gentleman and a scholar,
a charter member of Benjamin Franklin’s Philosophical Society, and the
trusted confidant of more than one Governor.
The idea of founding the _Journal_ was probably his. For one thing, he
was already something of a journalist, having published various items in
William Bradford’s _Gazette_ when it was the only newspaper in town.
Secondly, he was among the first overt opponents of Governor Cosby, the
collision between them being remarkably quick and remarkably bitter,
perhaps even more so than the Cosby-Morris and the Cosby-Van Dam
conflicts. Only a few months after arriving the Governor wrote to his
patron, the Duke of Newcastle:
There is one, James Alexander, whom I found here in both the New York
and the New Jersey Councils, although very unfit to sit in either, or
indeed to act in any other capacity where His Majesty’s honor and
interest are concerned. He is the only man that has given me any
uneasiness since my arrival.... In short, his known very bad character
would be too long to trouble Your Grace with particulars, and stuffed
with such tricks and oppressions too gross for Your Grace to hear. In
his room I desire the favor of Your Grace to appoint Joseph
Warrell.[13]
Many more letters of a similar content passed between the governor’s
mansion in New York and authoritative personages in England.
Alexander repaid the compliment in his own correspondence. To his old
friend, former Governor Robert Hunter, he confided:
Our Governor, who came here but last year, has long ago given more
distaste to the people than I believe any Governor that ever this
Province had during his whole government. He was so unhappy before he
came to have the character in England that he knew not the difference
between power and right; and he has, by many imprudent actions since
he came here, fully verified that character. It would be tedious to
give a detail of them. He has raised such a spirit in the people of
this Province that, if they cannot convince him, yet I believe they
will give the world reason to believe that they are not easily to be
made slaves of, nor to be governed by arbitrary power.... Nothing does
give a greater luster to your and Mr Burnet’s administrations here
than being succeeded by such a man.[14]
This letter is notable for giving Alexander’s own express statement
about the reason for publishing the brand new _Journal_:
Inclosed is also the first of a newspaper designed to be continued
weekly, chiefly to expose him [Cosby] and those ridiculous flatteries
with which Mr Harison loads our other newspaper, which our Governor
claims and has the privilege of suffering nothing to be in but what he
and Mr Harison approve of.
Mr Van Dam is resolved, and by far the greater part of the Province
openly approve his resolution, of not yielding to the Governor’s
demand. He has not as yet answered, nor will the Governor’s lawyers be
able for one while to compel him unless they break over all law and
persuade the new Judges [Delancey and Philipse] into a contradiction
of themselves. Which if they do, the world shall know it from the
press.[15]
The advent of the _Journal_ did nothing to lessen the bitterness of
Cosby’s condemnation of Alexander, for although it was known as
“Zenger’s paper” (since it bore only the printer’s name), the Governor
was in no doubt about who was the guiding genius of the enterprise. On
December 6, 1734, he writes to the Board of Trade:
Mr James Alexander is the person whom I have too much occasion to
mention.... No sooner did Van Dam and the late Chief Justice (the
latter especially) begin to treat my administration with rudeness and
ill-manners than I found Alexander to be at the head of a scheme to
give all imaginable uneasiness to the government by infusing into, and
making the worst impression on, the minds of the people. A press
supported by him and his party began to swarm with the most virulent
libels.[16]
Cosby realized further that Alexander was not the only one in New York
who was playing at the new kind of journalism, and he said of Morris:
His open and implacable malice against me has appeared weekly in
Zenger’s _Journal_. This man with the two others I have mentioned, Van
Dam and Alexander, are the only men from whom I am to look for any
opposition in the administration of the government, and they are so
implacable in their malice that I am to look for all the insolent,
false and scandalous aspersions that such bold and profligate wretches
can invent.[17]
Cosby’s cries of rage and anguish are understandable enough. From the
date of the _Journal_’s appearance (November 5, 1733) until his death
more than two years later it constituted itself his most alert censor,
critic, and judge. Every Monday the lash fell across his shoulders, the
attacks varying through the gamut from airy satire to thundering
condemnation. The opposition writers called him everything from an
“idiot” to a “Nero,” and pointedly suggested that his London superiors
should do something to alleviate the affliction they had imposed on
their Colony.
The first issue started the ball rolling with a brilliant and biting
story of the Westchester election and Morris’ victory in spite of the
sheriff’s heavy-handed machinations; and from then on there was no
letup. The fundamental idea being to convict Cosby of violating the
rules of his governorship, the _Journal_ never ceased to hammer at this
theme. The best example of the technique is in the issues of the last
two weeks of September, 1734, a continued essay that accuses Cosby of
voting as a member of the Council during its legislative sessions, of
demanding that bills from the Assembly be presented to him before the
Council saw them, and of adjourning the Assembly in his own name instead
of the king’s.
All three of these acts violated the rules by which the Governor was
bound, and when the _Journal_ carried the story to the Board of Trade,
Cosby was warned about them. He could not, of course, be condemned out
of hand on the basis of a newspaper story, but the significant thing is
that the Board should have found the story sufficient basis for
mentioning the subject.
Most of the _Journal_ writing is lost irretrievably behind a veil of
anonymity, which is not too important since whoever “Cato” and
“Philo-Patriae” and “Thomas Standby” may have been, they were acting in
concert. But every once in a while individual personality peeps or
glares through the writing, as in this reply to one argument for the
prudence of obeying the government, no matter what. The text of the
reply is saturated through and through with the pent-up gall and venom
on which Lewis Morris had been feeding for so long:
Let this wiseacre (whoever he is) go to any country wife and tell her
that the fox is a mischievous creature that can and does do her much
hurt, that it is difficult if not impracticable to catch him, and that
therefore she ought on any terms to keep in with him.
Why don’t we keep in with serpents and wolves on this foot? Animals
much more innocent and less mischievous to the public than some
Governors have proved.
A Governor turns rogue, does a thousand things for which a small rogue
would have deserved a halter; and because it is difficult if not
impracticable to obtain relief against him, therefore it is prudent to
keep in with him and join in the roguery; and that on the principle of
self-preservation. That is, a Governor does all he can to chain you,
and it being difficult to prevent him, it is prudent in you (in order
to preserve your liberty) to help him put them on and to rivet them
fast.
No people in the world have contended for liberty with more boldness
and greater success than the Dutch; are more tenacious in retaining
it; or more jealous of any attempts upon it; yet in their plantations
they seem to be lost to all the sense of it, and a fellow that is but
one degree removed from an idiot shall, with a full-mouthed
“Sacrament, Donder and Blixum!” govern as he pleases, dispose of them
and their properties at his discretion, and their magistrates will
keep in with him at any rate, and think his favor no mean purchase for
the loss of their liberty.
There have been Nicholsons, Cornburys, Coots, Barringtons, Edens,
Lowthers, Georges, Parks, Douglases, and many more, as very Bashaws as
ever were sent out from Constantinople; and there have not been
wanting under each of their administrations persons, the dregs and
scandals of human nature, who have kept in with them and used their
endeavors to enslave their fellow-subjects, and persuaded others to do
so.[18]
This was political independence with a vengeance. Never before had an
American newspaper dared to treat an officer of the crown so. Other
periodicals depended on official sanction to keep them going, or at
least never strayed too far from the line laid down for them. The
_Journal_ had no sanction and toed no line. It was, depending on one’s
political sympathies, either an outrageous innovation or else simply an
unfamiliar experiment. In either case it needed to be legitimized in the
eyes of its readers.