  At a Common Council held at the City Hall on Tuesday, September 16, 1735: “Ordered, that Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, barrister-at-law, be presented with the Freedom of this Corporation.” At a Common Council held at the City Hall on Monday, September 29, 1735: Paul Richards (Mayor), the Recorder, aldermen, and assistants of the City of New York, convened in Common Council. “To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. “Whereas honor is the just reward of virtue, and public benefits demand a public acknowledgment; “We therefore, under a grateful sense of the remarkable service done to the inhabitants of this City and Colony by Andrew Hamilton of Pennsylvania, barrister-at-law—by his learned and generous defense of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the press in the case of John Peter Zenger, lately tried on an information exhibited in the Supreme Court of this Colony—do by these presents bear to the said Andrew Hamilton the public thanks of the Freemen of this Corporation for that signal service which he cheerfully undertook under great indisposition of body and generously performed, refusing any fee or reward; “And in testimony of our great esteem for his person, and sense of his merit, do hereby present him with the Freedom of this Corporation. “These are therefore to certify and declare that the said Andrew Hamilton is hereby admitted, received, and allowed a Freeman of the said City; to have, hold, enjoy, and partake of all the benefits, liberties, privileges, freedoms, and immunities whatsoever granted or belonging to a Freeman and Citizen of the same City. “In testimony whereof, the Common Council of the City, in Common Council assembled, have caused the Seal of the City to be hereunto affixed this twenty-ninth day of September, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred and thirty-five.” |
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