ABSTRACT
A trial of a dissenter brings into public light matters of morality or wisdom for all to see. The equivalents in America are the clashes Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson had with the Massachusetts orthodoxy. In all three struggles the central issues are the meaning of conscience and the rule of law. The trial was presided over by the founder of the Bay Colony, Anne Hutchinson's nearest neighbour and chief accuser, John Winthrop. The Boston Five trials and the appellate court opinion touch a matter near the core of what trials of dissenters are about: conscience. A century later in the colony of New York a printer, John Peter Zenger, was prosecuted for writings in his newspaper which parallel John Lilburne's ideas in a trial which has similarities to Lilburne's. The 1968 Catonsville d.c nine trial might serve as the exemplar trial of dissenters.
