brought out the _New York Weekly Journal_, a paper which was so ably
conducted in opposition to the Government, that in the following year a
prosecution, or rather persecution, was determined upon. Andrew Hamilton
was Tenzer's counsel, and the temptation to quote a passage from the
peroration of his speech for the defence is irresistible:

'The question which is argued before you this day is not only the
cause of a poor printer, nor yet even of the colony of New York
alone: it is the best of causes--the cause of liberty. Every man
who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor in
you the men whose verdict will have secured to us upon a firm
basis--to us, to our posterity, to our neighbors, that right which
both nature and the honor of our country gives us, the liberty of
freely speaking and writing the truth.'

What could the jury do, after these burning words, but acquit the
prisoner? They did acquit him, and from this famous trial dates,
according to Gouverneur Morris, the dawn of the American Revolution,
which myriads of Englishmen, whatever may be thought or said to the
contrary by persons who wish to raise bad blood between two mighty
countries, delight to acknowledge as glorious. But the progress of the
press in America was slow under British rule, for in 1775 there were
only thirty-six journals in the various States altogether. The West
India islands soon began to establish papers of their own, and Barbadoes
led the way in 1731 with the _Barbadoes Gazette_. Yet the development of
journalism in other British colonies belongs to a later period of
history.

To return to England. A heavy blow was impending over the fourth estate.
In 1712 a tax, in the shape of a half-penny stamp, was levied upon each