Edward Rutherford. New York (№ 409376)

The rights in which Eliot the Master believed — the rights asserted by Andrew Hamilton and exercised by the jury — arose from the "general law" of England. It was the British who were the only ones in Europe who executed their king for tyranny, it was the English poet Milton who gave the definition of freedom of the press, it was the English philosopher Locke who postulated the existence of natural human rights. The people who fired from the cannon saw themselves as British and were proud of it. And yet, when old Hamilton turned to the jury, he made another point that they liked. The ancient law, he said, might have been good a long time ago in England, but in America centuries later it could be bad. Although no one really discussed his claim, the seeds were planted. And this idea took root and spread across the vast expanses of America.