James Alexander, a colonial New York attorney and statesman, was a contributor to and editor of the New York Weekly Journal. He is of literary interest primarily for his lifelong advocacy of freedom of the press, particularly in the celebrated libel trial of New York printer John Peter Zenger. His political prose anticipates that of Paine, Jefferson, and Hamilton, and his A Brief Narrative of the Case and Tryal of John Peter Zenger ... (1736), which went through fifteen editions in both New York and London by 1800, has been called by Charles R. Hildeburn "the most famous publication in America before the Farmer's Letters ."

Born in the village of Muthill in Pertshire, Scotland, son of David Alexander, James Alexander was to become the seventh Earl of Stirling, though he never claimed the title. Alexander studied science and mathematics at Edinburgh and joined the Scottish army as engineering officer in the...