He was convicted on both counts. The Supreme Court heard the appeal on February 13, 1804. Alexander Hamilton, who had been unavailable to argue for Croswell at the trial, made a six-hour statement on his behalf. He built his appeal on three points:   On the second point, Hamilton discoursed at great length, summarized in the opinion. Roman law had recognized truth as a defense to charges of libel; why had the English common law, from which the laws of New York derived, abandoned that, he asked. He found his answer in the Star Chamber, the secret medieval court that existed to try to punish those too powerful to submit to ordinary justice. "That is not the court from which we are to expect principles and precedents friendly to freedom," he observed. Hamilton concluded: James Kent agreed with Hamilton in a lengthy review of English law. The jury should have been allowed to consider the law of the case despite recent uncertainty in England as to whether that was sound in libel prosecutions. English law in the time of the Star Chamber had disallowed truth as a defense, saying "The reason assigned for the punishment of libels, whether true or false, is because they tend to a breach of the peace, by inciting the libelled party to revenge, or the people to sedition." But that, Kent held, had led to an overly tame English press, and laws in the new nation had already been tending toward allowing the truth, if justified, as a defense to a libel charge. Justice Thompson concurred, but Lewis and the other justice concluded that the same English authorities required they affirm the conviction. The tie vote meant the conviction stood. But Croswell was never sentenced, and though he was eventually granted a new trial it never occurred. Thus the case was never disposed. In 1805 the New York Legislature wrote Hamilton's position into law: it was always lawful for a libel defendant to introduce in his defense that the statements at issue were true. That was written into the state constitution in 1821. In the meantime, similar provisions had also been added to the laws and constitutions of other states, some allowing even greater latitude. In 1809, the Pennsylvania General Assembly went the furthest by enacting into statute the provision that the truth of the charge alone was a sufficient defense in any criminal libel trial if the target of the alleged libel was an officeholder. During the appeal, Hamilton had stayed with a friend in Albany, John Taylor. Over dinner one night with the Taylor family, he made some cutting remarks about Aaron Burr, his political rival.