Indelible ink

Relates the story of an impoverished printer named John Peter Zenger whose paper, the New York weekly journal, printed articles describing the new British governor, William Cosby, as corrupt and abusive. Although Zenger was only a front man for the governor's adversaries, New York Supreme Court Chief Justice Lewis Morris and attorney James Alexander, he nevertheless became the fall guy when Cosby brought the full force of his high office down upon the paper. Jailed for the better part of a year, Zenger was forced into a jury trial matched only in importance during the colonial period by the Salem Witch Trials.