Francis Foster

Someone has to bring you food every day.

The prison doesn't necessarily feed you.

So his wife would put out the newspaper because that's how they made the money to pay for the food and pay the rent.

and they keep trying to shut down her newspaper and she works and she would go to jail every night and provide the food to her husband and he would say okay go over to new jersey take this rowboat over and you know all these little machinations to stay in business right much later the new york journal is merged

into a newspaper that you may have heard of called the New York Post after many changes of ownership and splits in ownership.

Anyway, so copies of this paper exist to this day.

You can find facsimiles online.

He finally goes to trial, and some slick lawyers from Pennsylvania argue for the first time in the English common law that truth is a defense against libel.

Yes, we do not argue truth.

that these things, these facts that we presented, make the governor open to ridicule.

He looks ridiculous.

He looks corrupt.

But this is the truth.

And truth, I should not be punished for producing the truth.

This is a revolutionary doctrine.

And because this is a British Empire case, this precedent will change the English-speaking world.

This German immigrant who's been in the United States, the colonies, really,

for less than a decade is about to change the english-speaking world but the governor and the upper class of new york which is a piece of the upper class of england is terrified how will we stop ridicule that will come from the lower classes how will we stop the finger pointing

Dare they?

Our honor comes from status.