bringing his efforts once more to the notice of the Council; this time, however, it was the subscribers who were called before them.
Two years later the Governor and the people became involved in a dispute as to the extent of their respective rights, and one of the leaders of the colony, Joseph Growden, had Bradford print the charter. Party spirit ran high, and Bradford, scenting trouble, was careful enough to send out the work without his imprint. Once more he was in clash with the government, this time called by the Governor, is he says, to accuse himself. In the course of an ingenious evasion, he declared that one of the things for which William Penn had asked him to come to the colony was to print the laws, and the only reason why he had not printed them was that he had no particular orders to do so. Bradford held out for the right to print the laws, declaring that the charter had been printed in England, and showed a fine sense of his rights by refusing to answer questions until he was faced by his accuser.[1]
In his next clash with the authorities Bradford, on trial for printing a seditious pamphlet for one of the warring factions, showed that he had a fundamental understanding of the rights of publishers. He conducted his own examination, and objected to two of the jurors on the ground that they had already formed an opinion. In the conduct of his case, he laid the ground-cloth for the many libel dramas that were to follow—notably in the case of Zenger—the successful issue of which meant so much to the colonies in their struggle for freedom.
Bradford was permitted to go free, but as he had been interfered with from the first publication he had attempted, he was heartily sick of the colony, especially as the
- ↑ An account of this interview in Bradford's own handwriting now hangs in the Hall of the New York Historical Society.
