these that we find the German language, manners, and religious views handed down, especially in Pennsylvania.
The new Assembly called by Hunter would consent to nothing but annual grants, which for some time caused much dissatisfaction and dispute. A few years later, Hunter obtained a majority in the newly-elected Assembly disposed to favor his wishes: accordingly, he was enabled to rule this hitherto ungovernable province without further difficulty, having now a standing revenue, and a subservient Assembly.
Hunter, in 1719, left the province, and William Burnet, a son of the famous bishop of that name, was appointed to succeed him. The new governor seems to have been aware of the importance of resisting the progress of the French in Canada and the West. He caused a trading post to be established at Oswego, thus taking possession of the south shore of Lake Ontario, pleading that the Five Nations were under the protection of England, and that they had granted their hunting grounds to their white protectors. In 1727, a fort was built by Burnet at the same place; but the French were not idle; they also erected a fort at Niagara, which commanded the communication into the upper lakes and the Mississippi. Burnet, meanwhile, was involved in embarrassments with the Assembly and people. Much complaint having been made by the latter, he dissolved the Assembly who had now been in office for eleven years. The new Assembly was not more favorable to the governor, and complained of the Court of Chancery, in which Burnet presided, as with out the authority of law, and oppressive in the fees exacted. Shortly after, Burnet was removed from New York and made governor of Massachusetts.
After the brief administration of Montgomery, who succeeded Burnet in 1728, at which time the city of New York numbered something over eight thousand inhabitants, Colonel William Cosby was made governor. At first he had the promise of a popular administration, but as he was of a violent temper and mercenary spirit, he soon after became involved in quarrels with members of the Council, and with John Peter Zenger, proprietor of the Weekly Journal, a newspaper opposed to the governor and his party. Cosby instituted a suit for libel, and both ordered the Journal to be burned by the sheriff and arrested Zenger. Andrew Hamilton, a Philadelphia lawyer, defended Zenger's cause successfully, so that he was acquitted at once, and the freedom of the press was thereby vindicated.[1]
- ↑ To use the language of the venerable Dr. Francis, "the newspaper press is endeared to the feelings of Americans by the strongest considerations of patriotism. Franklin, the apostle of liberty, more than a century ago, published in a newspaper animadversions on the legislative enactments of Great Britain, relative to the colonies. The free strictures on the administration of Governor Cosby and his Council, printed in the Weekly Journal of the city of New York, by John Peter Zenger, roused the energies of a whole people, and to use the language of Governeur Morris, in a conversation with the speaker, 'the trial of Zenger, in 1733, was the germ of American freedom—the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America.'"—See Dr. Francis's speech at the Fortieth Anniversary of the "New York Historical Society," 1844: Proceedings, p. 86
