The _Journal_’s anti-Cosby campaign touched off the first of the many
newspaper wars that have raged on the banks of the Hudson. As often as
it attacked did the _Gazette_ rush to the rescue amid an acrimonious
exchange of accusations and insults. Thus, referring to the sentiments
of the people of New York toward their Governor:
The _Journal_. They think, as matters now stand, that their liberties
and properties are precarious, and that slavery is like to be entailed
on them and their posterity if some past things be not amended.[19]
The _Gazette_. Now give me leave to say what I have reason to believe
some of the people of this City and Province think in relation to that
paragraph in Zenger’s paper. They think it is an aggravated libel.[20]
In such a tone did New York’s two newspapers carry on their duel, one
which concedes nothing to the later age of yellow journalism in its
furious charges and countercharges of deceit, ignorance, calumny, and
slander. The above onset and riposte stand out because the passage from
the _Journal_ sounds like Alexander himself, while Governor Cosby agreed
with the _Gazette_ that it was “libelous” and made it part of the formal
indictment of Peter Zenger.
Both sides went at it hammer and tongs. In the _Journal_, where Cosby is
called a “Nero,” his kept journalist is his “spaniel.” The _Gazette_
retorts with epithets like “seditious rogues” and “disaffected
instigators of arson and riot,” and proposes that the name “Zenger” be
turned into a common-noun synonym for “liar.”
The men behind the opposition newspaper made a point of referring to
Harison obliquely in satirical mock “advertisements” like these:
A large spaniel of about five foot five inches high has lately strayed
from his kennel with his mouth full of fulsome panegyrics, and in his
ramble dropped them in the _New York Gazette_. When a puppy he was
marked thus (FH), and a cross in the middle of his forehead; but the
mark being worn out, he has taken upon him in a heathenish manner to
abuse mankind by imposing a great many gross falsehoods on them.
Whoever will strip the said panegyrics of their fulsomeness, and send
the beast back to his kennel, shall have the thanks of all honest men,
and all reasonable charges.[21]
The spaniel strayed away is of his own accord returned to his kennel,
from whence he begs leave to assure the public that all those fulsome
panegyrics were dropped in the _New York Gazette_ by the express
orders of his master; and that for the gross falsehoods he is charged
with imposing upon mankind, he is willing to undergo any punishment
the people will impose on him if they can make full proof in any Court
of Record that any one individual person in the Province (that knew
him) believed any of them.[22]
The writers of these squibs had measured their man perfectly. They could
become furious, caustic, ironic or insulting—that is, _serious_—with the
Governor and the rest of the men around him; but the proper approach to
Francis Harison was through satire. From the _Journal_ he received a
systematic dose of it.
For six months he absorbed the barbs of ridicule while maintaining an
air of indifference. Finally, able to stand the badgering no longer, he
whirled on his tormentors and attempted to repay them in their own coin:
Supposing another should turn the tables upon the authors of these
infamous and fictitious advertisements, how easily might it be done?
The real or imagined defects of the _Amsterdam Crane_, the
_Connecticut Mastiff_, _Phillip Baboon, Senior_, _Phillip Baboon,
Junior_, the _Scythian Unicorn_, and _Wild Peter from the Banks of the
Rhine_ might be enlarged upon, and placed in a most ludicrous
light.[23]
Since the crass and clumsy Harison was devoid of the slightest capacity
for satire, he inevitably suffered when he picked up the weapon that was
wielded so devastatingly by his enemies. The only interesting thing
about this paragraph is that it identifies the men of the Popular party
who contributed most to the _Journal_: Rip Van Dam, William Smith, Lewis
Morris, Senior, Lewis Morris, Junior, James Alexander, and Peter Zenger.
The honors of combat obviously went to “Zenger’s paper.” It was not
always fair, by a long shot—nor has any newspaper ever been when
fighting a war with a rival. But Cosby and Harison and the Court party
_in toto_ were too vulnerable for all the _Journal_’s broadsides to go
astray. The Governor was hit over and over again. So was his editor. So
were his other cronies.
They fought back in the _Gazette_, but they were always on the
defensive, always incapable of getting a real attack going. Finally
Cosby, boiling with rage, determined on something more practical than a
war of words.