History of Journalism in the United States/Chapter 7

by George Henry Payne

CHAPTER VII

THE ASSUMPTION OF POLITICAL POWER

Boldness of the press—Boston the "Hub" of the fight—Samuel Adams—Daniel Fowle—The Boston Chronicle—Thomas and the Spy—Tribute to democracy and journalism—The Whig Club—Alexander McDougall—"45" — Hugh Gaine and John Holt—Holt's activities for the patriots cause—William Goddard—Washington's letter to Goddard—The Green family—Press in other colonies.

At practically the same time that there began to spread throughout the colonies the idea of a nation—before there was yet a well developed idea of independence—the Fourth Estate began to show conscious power. The new institution was no longer a thing of threads and patches. Although there were at the date of the Albany conference hardly more than a dozen journals in the colonies, and none at all in at least six of them, the liberty of the press was already one of the most firmly rooted ideas in the colonies. The boldness of the men who, but a few decades before had been almost outlaws, established for themselves and their calling a respect and a following that made them a primary factor in the struggle into which the colonies were about to enter. The new institution took its place among the active factors in the organization of human society, adapting itself progressively to the "wants which it itself created and fostered." The tasks to which this institution—scarcely out of infancy—addressed itself were no less tasks than the freeing of a people and the foundation of a nation.

The people were beginning to be sovereign. The press, as the leaders in the revolutionary movement said over and over again, was the expression of that sovereignty. It was also the instrument by which the people were aroused to oppose oppression. Having taken unto themselves the right to question authority, they could not even understand the attitude of those who still looked to the king as the sole source of authority. It was not conceivable to them that only a few years before Louis XIV, entering the French Parliament in his hunting-dress and great boots, with whip in hand, had been in a position to declare: "The mischievous consequences of your assemblies are well known. I therefore order this, which is met to discuss my edict, to be at an end,"^[1] or that their own king, Henry VII, when Parliament refused to pass his appropriation bill, had sent for the members and, glowering at them, declared that if the bill failed to pass he would chop off their heads.

There were many, not only in England but in the colonies who still believed that the king represented this same kind of power and authority; but the men who were leading public opinion, who were insistent on the rights of the people, were men who had developed a point of view that could little comprehend such authority.

The Provinces in this short pre-Revolutionary periodpresented a spectacle unusual in political history, ana particularly unheard-of at that time. The law-mak-l ing body in England did not have the right of publicity.] Public meetings and the press were still controlled. In', France, the people were a negligible element, and in Germany there was little free discussion of political affairs. This revolution by public opinion was therefore, to those who were out of sympathy with it, like some strange apparition.

The idea of a nation was slowly passing into the minds of the people, but many still believed that a recognition of the rights of the colonies could be achieved without a severance of political relations with the mother country. The great idea of a free and independent nation, as it rose in the minds of the people, left its traces in the journals of the day, and it was to those journals that the idea owed much.

Even before the independence of the country was thought of, prophecies as to the future greatness of America were being made in Europe, and these were bound, in time, to have their effect on the colonists. The spectacle of a nation in the process of formation was an attraction to the clear-visioned philosophers, such as Berkley in England and Turgot in France. A few farseeing patriots dreamed of a nation; Franklin, with continued vision, prophesied that the Mississippi Valley would become, in a comparatively few years, a populous and powerful country.^[2] Internal conditions, too, were adding to the leaven. About the middle of the eighteenth century a wave of democracy swept over the province of New York and spread to other provinces, in consequence of which suffrage was considerably extended. ^[3]

Ignorant of occurrences on this side of the water, and unable to understand the temper and the new beliefs of the people who had once been loyal and unquestioning subjects, the British Government, by a series of acts calculated to check their democratic tendencies, irritated the colonists and finally roused them to the point of revolution. To awaken in the Americans a sense of indignation over their wrongs; to keep alive their resentment that they might, by cohesive action, break down the defense and repel the attack of the Tories when they finally saw the necessity for attack and defense—this was the work of a comparatively few men, who, when they were not journalists themselves, either became journalists, or else, like Thomas Jefferson in Virginia, induced others to take up the cause through the press.

Papers were now being published regularly in Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Williamsburg (Virginia,) and Charleston. But it was in Boston that this fight took place—Boston, the cradle of American liberty and the birthplace of American journalism. It was from Boston that the campaign of publicity and propaganda was directed, for it was vitally necessary that Boston should arouse the other colonies, in order that she might not find herself single-handed in the very unequal struggle in which she had engaged.

There was in Boston one man who recognized the power of journalism, the first man in America to use it for political purposes—Samuel Adams. It was to Adams and a group of his young friends that the first political newspaper in the colonies owed its existence. On January 4, 1748, the Independent Advertiser was issued in Boston by Gamaliel Rogers and John Fowle, the leading printers of the colony, who had already published the American Magazine, from 1743 to 1746. They were the first in America to successfully manufacture ink, and the first American impression of the New Testament in English had been printed by them.

The Advertiser was started as the result of the activity of a political club, formed by the man who was to be the "Father of the Revolution." The paper, it is said, was begun on the strength of the communications promised by the members^[4] That the group of young men associated with Adams took themselves and their task with becoming seriousness, is evidenced by the pertinent and well-written address with which the opening number saluted the public, stating their purpose to be, inasmuch "As our present political state affords matter for a variety of thoughts," to insert whatever of general interest might appear proper to publish. They declared that they were of no party, nor would they promote any narrow private designs. "We are ourselves free, and our paper shall be free—free as the Constitution we enjoy—free to Truth, Good Manners and good Sense, and at the same time free from all licentious Reflections, Insolence and Abuse."^[5]

The Independent Advertiser reflected the sentiments of most of the colonists at that time, their point of view being friendly and even affectionate toward the mother-country. "Our Constitution is English, which is another name for free and happy, and is without doubt the perfectest model civil government that has ever been in the world."

A free press, the right of habeas corpus, trial by jury and popular representation were all regarded as English institutions—the gift of the mother-land. Even Washington himself, in 1756, spoke of showing his obedience to "the best of Kings."^[6]

In April, 1750, Rogers and Fowle dissolved partnership and the paper was discontinued, but the work of Samuel Adams went on. The part played by the great patriot and the Boston Gazette, with which his name is so closely associated, is so important a part of the history of journalism that it has been reserved for another chapter. A paper of the same name had been published from 1753 to 1755, by Samuel Kneeland, but the journal of Edes and Gill, the journal which was to make American history, did not appear until April 7, 1755, after Kneeland's paper had passed away.

The name of Daniel Fowle, however, is entitled to further mention, for in a persistent fight with the authorities he proved that the printer was no longer a poor fellow at whom any representative of the government might bark. In October, 1754, he was arrested for printing an anonymous pamphlet, supposed to be an attack on the House of Representatives. He was accused of printing the libel and was sent to jail, but as the prosecution failed to establish his guilt, the case was dropped. The following year he brought suit for £1000 damages for illegal imprisonment, and finally in 1766, after continued litigation, he was awarded £20—establishing, if not the right of the printer to a fair trial, at least a monument to his combativeness and his insistency.

"Living in the family of Daniel Fowle's brother," says Isaiah Thomas, himself a notable printer and the first historian of printing in America, "I early became intimately acquainted with the whole transaction, and deep impressions were then made upon my mind in favor of the liberty of the press."^[7]

It is easy to understand how a long, bitter fight by an apparently humble printer against the powerful government had its effect on the imagination of other printers and writers.

With so aggressive an adversary as Samuel Adams in the field, and one proving himself to be so capable a journalistic combatant, the defenders-of the crown were driven to the use of his own weapons. One of the most loyal of these defenders was the old News-Letter, which became for a while, under new hands, a vigorous figure in the arena.

John Draper, an industrious and scrupulous journalist, had conducted the News-Letter for thirty years. When he died, in 1762, it passed to his son, Richard Draper, who earned the reputation of being the best reporter—"the best compiler of news in his day."^[8]

The News-Letter, under the Drapers, had achieved a certain distinction and much authority, although it did not have a large circulation. Richard Draper was a strong supporter of the royal cause and, as a sign of his devotion, he added the King's arms to the title of his paper. He died in 1774, and his widow attempted to carry it on with the assistance of a young printer and bookseller, named Boyle. Boyle was a patriot, however, and as the paper was developing more and more into an out-and-out Tory sheet, he retired. While the British occupied Boston the paper flourished, but when they left it ceased to exist. The widow Draper left Boston with the British troops and received a life pension from the British Government. She has been immortalized in Trumbull's poem, "M'Fingal." Thus ended ingloriously the first newspaper printed in America, its end as little inspiring as was its beginning. It was cordially hated by the patriots. It was the only paper printed in Boston during the siege, and was ardent in its defense of the British troops and their various acts.^[9]

The Boston Chronicle appeared on December 21, 1767, to back up the Tory cause, though at first it seemed inclined to be impartial, even going so far as to print the celebrated letters of the Pennsylvania Farmer, by John Dickinson. The Chronicle was one of the first evidences that the Tory forces realized the necessity for using methods that they had once despised. Its very publication was a frank admission that the first battle in the great fight for popular sovereignty had been won; it was an admission that, after all, public opinion had to be considered.

The men who were entrusted with the undertaking of keeping the populace "from being misinformed" were John Mein, a bookseller of some literary ability, and John Fleming, a printer.

John Mein was the founder of the circulating library in Boston. He had come to the colony from Scotland but three years before, bringing with him an assortment of books, Irish linens and other merchandise. The necessity of some organ to defend the Crown was apparent to the shrewd Scotchman, who formed a partnership with John Fleming, another Scotchman then resident in the colony. Fleming was sent abroad to procure the best materials and workmen possible. They opened a printing shop in 1766, and the following year the Chronicle was brought out.

As might be expected, this representative of authority was mechanically superior to those journals which were dependent on popular support. It was the most ambitious endeavor in newspaper printing that the continent had yet seen. It was printed on a whole sheet quarto, after the fashion of the London Chronicle, containing only reading matter in the way of news and extracts from the European papers. Despite the fact that its superiority was commented on, it sold at the same price as the other Boston papers. It was unquestionably subsidized by the British Government.

The neutrality which was at first assumed, soon began to give way to the necessity for espousing the weakening Loyalist cause, and Mein undertook the abuse of the Whig leaders in Boston. The result was that public indignation was so thoroughly aroused against him that he was obliged to leave the colony, sailing for England in 1769. Very shortly after the Chronicle began to fall away, even with the bolstering-up that the Colonial Governor gave it, and it was discontinued in 1770.^[10]

The endeavor to reach those who were not as yet interested in the newspapers led Zechariah Fowle and Isaiah Thomas to bring out the Massachusetts Spy, August 7, 1770. "It was calculated," says Thomas, "to obtain subscriptions from mechanics and other classes of people who had not much time to spare from business." Three issues a week were planned and the first number was scattered free throughout the town. The venture, however, was premature, and at the end of a month the noble design succumbed.

The following year Thomas brought out a paper of the same name, with the announcement that it was "open to all parties, but influenced by none." In two years, he says, his paper had the largest circulation in New England.^[11] At first the Tories contributed a few essays, but its Whig leanings were evident, and it soon became an outspoken supporter of the Liberty cause.

The Loyalists gave warning in 1774 that, in the event of an outbreak, not only the leaders of the patriots but “those trumpeters of sedition, the printers, Edes and Gill and Thomas” would be properly punished.

Thomas, who was the sole controlling factor in his own paper, was much more vehement than Edes and Gill, who allowed the more scholarly writers to control their policy; Thomas was trying to arouse the laboring class, the plain people, whereas the Gazette appealed to the more cultivated.

In his narrative of newspapers,^[12] Dr. Eliot said of these writers for the Spy that they were "most of them young men of genius, without experience in business or knowledge of the world." But it is of such men that enthusiasm for the right is born. They furnish the passion without which there cannot be war, when many of those who, while seeing the righteousness of war, are dominated by intellect, weaken and hesitate.

It is to Thomas that we are indebted for the first history of journalism, which is included in his comprehensive History of Printing, published in 1810. In his own resumé of this period, commenting on the part that the journals played in preparing the public mind, and his own endeavors to arouse the laboring classes, he says: "Common sense in common language is necessary to influence one class of citizens as much as learning and elegance of composition are to produce an effect upon another. The cause of America was just; and it was only necessary to state this cause in a clear and impressive manner to unite the American people in its support."^[13]

This is the statement of Thomas, one of the men who fought for the cause, not only as a publicist but as a soldier—as one of the journalists of Liberty, as well as of America. He knew better than any modern historian what it was that aroused the colonists, what it was that made them fight. It is an eloquent tribute to democracy as well as to journalism.

When the young printer began the publication of the Massachusetts Spy, he was in his twenty-seventh year.

He tried to be fair to the Government, but his convictions were all with the colonists. At first, the Government tried to buy him. Failing in this, more strenuous methods were attempted, but he was undaunted and continued to increase his circulation and his influence. He was prosecuted for libel but no indictment could be obtained. His vehemence attracted attention throughout the country and his paper was burned by the hangman. Several attempts, he says, were made to prosecute him; the Loyalists in North Carolina burned him in effigy, and a regiment of British soldiers paraded before his house, threatening to tar and feather him.

The part of the papers grew more important as the contest grew warmer. John Adams was disturbed, as one might expect, by the vehemence of Thomas,^[14] but that vehemence was necessary, in order to arouse and stir the people. With the issue of July 7, 1774, Thomas threw all caution to the winds and his paper appeared with "a new device," a snake and a dragon. This device was spread across the paper; the dragon representing Great Britain and the snake, which was divided into nine parts, representing the colonies. Under it, in large letters, were the words, "Join or Die!" "This device," Thomas proudly stated in his history, "appeared in every succeeding paper whilst it was printed in Boston."

Like Franklin and some of the earlier printers in the colonies, Thomas was not satisfied with the paper in Boston alone, but reached out and established a paper in Newburyport, called the Essex Journal. As the situation grew more critical in Boston, however, he sold this, and his efforts were restricted to the Massachusetts Spy, which assumed such an important part in the conflict that it was openly said that, the day the British actually began hostilities, Thomas would be among the first to suffer. Anticipating their action, he brought out his last number in Boston on April 6, 1775, and quietly started moving his types and press to Worcester. On the 19th of April, hostilities began, but Thomas was safely away and, on the 3rd of May, he reissued the Spy from the town of Worcester.

It is from a contemporary Loyalist writer, Thomas Jones, that one gets the best view of the journalistic activities of the New York patriots of that time. The history of Judge Jones is a far from non-partisan performance, but it abounds in spicy information. In 1752 the Whig Club was formed, by William Livingston, William Smith and John Morin Scott—all graduates of Yale, "A college remarkable for its persecuting spirit, its republican principles, its intolerance in religion and its utter aversion to Bishops and all Earthly Kings."^[15]

The club proceeded at once to attack the established church and to deride monarchy, by bringing out a weekly paper called the Independent Reflector, and later one called the Watch Tower. The latter was really the front page of Gaine's Mercury, written by William Livingston; the former was distinguished through the fact that the Reverend Aaron Burr, Smith, Livingston and Scott were the principal contributors. It was printed by one James Parker.

Jones further informs us that in the American Whig, published in 1769, the villainous statement was printed that "this country will shortly become a great and flourishing empire, independent of Great Britain; enjoying its civil and religious liberty, uncontaminated and deserted of all control from Bishops, the curse of curses, and from the subjection of all earthly kings." The General Assembly having been won over to the side of the crown, numerous attacks were made upon it, among them a printed handbill accusing its members of treachery. A reward was offered for information as to the author, with the result that James Parker, who had printed it, and who was threatened with the loss of the small political position he held, gave information that Alexander McDougall was the author.

"The method lately used in New York to post up inflammatory handbills," states a contemporary of this particularly famous one, "was the same as used in England at the time of the Pretender. It was done by a man who carried a little boy in a box like a magic lantern, and while he leaned against the wall, as if to rest himself, the boy drew back the slide, pasted on the paper, and shutting himself up again, the man took the proper occasion to walk off to another resting-place."

Concerning McDougall's activities during the war, his short biographies are explicit, but of his career up to that time, it is to the unfriendly Jones that we must turn. He was the son of a poor milkman, we are told, who had taken up seafaring as a vocation, finally becoming the captain of a privateer.

The Tory historian pays him an unusual tribute: "He was a principal promoter and encourager of the unhappy disputes which raged with such violence in the colony for many years, terminated in a rebellion, in a dismemberment of the empire, in almost a total destruction of thirteen valuable provinces and in the loss of not less than 100,000 brave men.^[16]

Surely such a man is worthy of our attention, especially in view of the fact that he was, if not one of the editors, at least one of the principal contributors to Holt's paper, the New York Journal, which now became the leading organ of the patriots.

McDougall was arrested on the information of Parker; he refused to give bail and was committed to prison. Because of the connection of the number forty-five with his commitment—the proceedings of the Assembly voting the handbill libelous were printed on the forty-fifth page of the journal of that body— "45" became a magic number for the patriots. It was also the number of John Wilkes's North Briton, which had been declared by the House of Commons to be a scandalous and seditious libel.

The Journal continued to make a hero of him, regaling the public with the exhilarating information that on the 45th day of the year, 45 gentlemen went down to jail and dined with Captain McDougall on 45 pounds of beef, cut from a bullock 45 months old, drank 45 bottles of wine in 45 toasts, etc. The use of numbers as rallying cries was then in vogue, not only in New York but in Massachusetts, Where, when Governor Bernard asked the colony to rescind its circular letter to the other colonies, the request was rejected by a vote of 92 to 17. The "Illustrious 92" then became a favorite toast of all gatherings of the patriots.

McDougall was not liberated until March 4, 1771.^[17] "After his first short term in jail, he gave bail, but the suit was never prosecuted. In the following December, he was arraigned before the Assembly; because of his answers he was held in "high contempt" and was again sent to jail when the Assembly was prorogued.^[18]

McDougall's own account of his arrest was printed in Holt's Journal, February 9, 1770, dated from the "New Gaol" and addressed "To the Freeholders, Freemen and Inhabitants of the Colony of New York and to all the friends of Liberty in North America."

He was brought into the presence of the Chief Justice:

"His Honor said to me:

"'So, you have brought yourself into a pretty scrap."

To which I replied:

"'May it please your Honor, that must be judged by my peers.'

"He then told me that it was fully proven that I was the author or publisher of the above mentioned paper, which he called 'a false, vile, and scandalous libel.'

"I replied again:

"'This also must be decided by my peers.'"^[19]

When McDougall, almost a year later, was called before the Assembly to answer to the indictment for libel, he refused to answer questions on the ground that they would tend to incriminate him.

"The House has power to extort an answer, and will punish you for contumacy if you refuse to reply," stated De Noyellis, who was responsible for the charge.

"The House has power to throw the prisoner over the bar or out of the window, but the public will doubt the justice of the proceedings," exclaimed George Clinton—later to be the first Governor of New York State—who was the only lawyer who dared appear for McDougall.^[20]

While there were many distinguished contributors, the important editors of this period were Hugh Gaine and John Holt. The New York Mercury came out in 1752, under the auspices of Gaine; but it was the New York Journal or General Advertiser, issued by Holt in 1770, which remained the organ of the Liberty Party until the capture of the city in 1776.

Gaine was made famous by Philip Freneau, who attacked him in verse. He was an industrious journalist, for he not only collected his news and set it up, but printed his papers, folded them and delivered them. His career indicates that he was of a volatile disposition, and he was accused of taking whichever side of a question was the most profitable.

John Holt had begun his career in New York as an associate of James Parker, the informant on McDougall. Parker, one of Bradford's apprentices, had established in 1743 with the backing of Franklin, a new weekly, called the New York Gazette or Weekly Post Boy, which was a continuation of William Bradford's periodical. The same year he began the publication of a, monthly called the American Magazine and Historical Chronicle.^[21] Parker, with William Weyman, whom he had taken in as a partner, was arrested in 1756 for printing an article offensive to the Assembly, but both were discharged almost immediately on apologizing to the Legislature, paying a fine, and giving the name of the writer of the article, a missionary named Hezekiah Watkins.

Holt was the editor of the Gazette up to 1766, when he brought out or revived the New York Journal. He early established a reputation for courage and patriotism. The attitude of the public toward him is shown in a letter which he printed in 1765, and which he declared had been thrown into his printing house:

"Dulce et decorum est, pro Patria mori.

"Mr. Holt, as you have hitherto proved yourself a Friend to Liberty, by publishing some Compositions as had a Tendency to promote the Cause, we are encouraged to hope you will not be deterred from continuing your useful Paper by groundless Fear of the detestable Stamp-Act. However, should you at this critical time, shut up the Press, and basely desert us, depend upon it, your House, Person and Effects, will be in imminent Danger: We shall, therefore, expect your paper on Thursday as usual; if not, on Thursday Evening—take care. Signed in the Names and by the Order of a great Number of the Free-born Sons of New York.

"John Hampden."^[22]

"On the Turf, the 2nd of November, 1765."

It is interesting also to read his statement that offense had been given to many of the inhabitants of the city by the advertisement of a play at a time of public distress "when great numbers of poor people can scarce find means to subsist."^[23] The play was produced, and the indignation of the public over the fact that people should go to a place of entertainment at a time when others were starving caused a mob to break in and gut the theater—"many lost their hats and other parts of dress."

Although not as virulent nor as able as the Boston Gazette, or the Massachusetts Spy, from this time on Holt gave the patriots a service that was second only to that of the New England papers. In 1774 he dropped the King's arms from the first page, substituting for it Franklin's serpent cut in pieces, with the motto "Unite or Die." When the British took possession of New York he moved to Esopus, now Kingston, and when that village was burned in 1777, he went to Poughkeepsie, and there stayed until the peace of 1783, when he came back to New York and continued his publication, the title of which was the Independent Gazette or the New York Journal Revived.

The heartiest response to the newspaper and patriotic activities of Boston naturally came from the New England colonies. The desire to have a paper in Rhode Island that would more fairly represent the point of view of the Whigs than did the Newport Mercury, the one paper published there, led the Governor to encourage William Goddard, one of the famous printers of the time, to establish the first printing press in Providence, and in 1762 to publish a newspaper there, the Providence Gazette.

What Samuel Adams and his group were doing in Boston, Stephen Hopkins, the Governor of Rhode Island — "a far-seeing and accomplished statesman," comparable in intellectual traits with Benjamin Franklin, according to one authority—did almost as well in that little colony.^[24] He was not only the author of a strong pamphlet that drew out the "Halifax Gentleman," the first Loyalist writer in the field, but his contributions to the Providence Gazette^[25] helped to build the paper up as a patriotic organ, to counteract the efforts of the Loyalists, and to arouse the men of the colony to a full sympathy with the patriots of Boston.

William Goddard, the publisher of this paper, was as important in his field as Hopkins was in his. Not meeting with sufficient encouragement in Providence, which was a small place, he moved to New York and worked with John Holt on the New York Gazette and Post Boy.^[26] In 1766 he went to Philadelphia and became the partner of Galloway and Wharton, both Loyalists, in the Pennsylvania Chronicle. In 1773, having found the venture unprofitable, Goddard went to Baltimore, where he started another newspaper. Here he devoted himself to working out a plan for a line of post-riders from New Hampshire to Georgia, in opposition to the Post Office establishment of the crown. He traveled through the colonies, leaving the care of his printing affairs to his sister. The scheme was successful, and he was made surveyor of the roads, expecting to succeed Franklin as Postmaster General.

Bache, Franklin's son-in-law, was appointed to succeed him, and Goddard, in disgust, threw up his position and resumed the publication of the Maryland Journal. Two articles which he printed in 1777 caused the Baltimore Whig Club to notify him to get out of town. He appealed to the Assembly for protection and remained in town, but was mobbed on several occasions. In 1792 he sold his press and moved to Rhode Island.

Goddard was an intimate friend of General Charles Lee, who had endeavored to supplant Washington as Commander-in-Chief, and, failing, had retired in disgrace after the battle of Monmouth in 1778. Lee was the writer of "Queries," which brought Goddard into trouble with the Whig Club in 1779.^[27] At his death in 1782, Lee bequeathed valuable real estate in Virginia to Goddard, and also his private papers. While preparing these for publication, Goddard informed Washington of their contents, assuring him of his wish to avoid injuring his feelings. The answer of Washington is worthy of reproduction:

"Mount Vernon, 11th June, 1785.

"On the 8th inst. I received the favour of your letter of the 30th of May. In answer to it I can only say, that your own good judgment must direct you in the publication of the manuscript papers of General Lee. I can have no request to make concerning the work.

"I never had a difference with that gentleman, but on public ground; and my conduct toward him upon this occasion, was only such as I conceived myself indispensably bound to adopt in discharge of the public trust reposed in me. If this produced in him unfavorable sentiments of me, I yet can never consider the conduct I pursued with respect to him either wrong or improper, however I may regret that it may have been differently viewed by him, and that it excited his censure and animadversions.

"Should there appear in General Lee's writings anything injurious or unfriendly to me, the impartial and dispassionate world must decide how far I deserved it from the general tenor of my conduct. I am gliding down the stream of life, and wish, as is natural, that my remaining days may be undisturbed and tranquil; and, conscious of my integrity, I would willingly hope that nothing will occur to give me anxiety; but should anything present itself in this or in any other publication, I shall never undertake the painful task of recrimination, nor do I know that I shall even enter upon my justification.

"I consider the communication you have made, as a mark of great attention, and the whole of your letter as a proof of your esteem. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

"George Washington."^[28]

Mr. Goddard.

Connecticut showed a steady development. The first paper in that colony appeared in the same year with the Boston Gazette, 1755. The Connecticut Gazette, as it was called, was the enterprise of James Parker and John Holt.

The New London Summary, which appeared on August 8, 1758, the title afterward being changed to the New London Gazette, brought to the fore the indefatigable Green family, whose contributions to printing and journalism grew like the family tree, for wherever a member of this family was to be found, there was a pioneer with the printing press.

A most important addition to the patriotic papers was the Connecticut Courant, brought out by Thomas Green at Hartford in December, 1764, the same Hartford

Bartholomew Green, the Emigrant, arrived 1632.

Samuel, came with father; printed the Indian Bible; d. 1702 aged 88; Cambridge.

Samuel, b. 1648, d. 1690 Boston

Bartholomew, d. 1732 Boston

Timothy, b. 1679, Boston; removed to New London, 1714; d. 1757

Bartholomew Jr. Boston 1751 removed to Nova Scotia

Timothy, Boston; removed in, 1752 to New London

John Boston; d. 1787

Samuel, d. 1752; with his father; his three sons were printers in Connecticut

Nathaniel, New London

Jonas, Philadelphia and Annapolis[29]

Courant that ranks as one of the leading papers of the country to-day. In conjunction with Samuel Green, the proprietor of the Hartford paper brought out the Connecticut Journal and New Haven Post Boy in October, 1767. In this paper appeared the earlier essays of John Trumbull, one of the first of America's poets. Not the least interesting point in Trumbull's many-sided career appears in a news item in the Connecticut Gazette for September 24, 1757. This states that, at the age of seven, he passed the entrance examination to Yale, a feat which necessitated his being able to write Latin prose and to read Cicero and Virgil, as well as the four Gospels in Greek. While taking the examination, he was held in the lap of another student, the grown-up student being twelve years old. It was Trumbull's ambition, as expressed in the series of essays that he contributed to the Journal, to reform the controversial manners of a time when, as he said later, "the press groaned with controversy," and when the writing was marked with "absurd pedantry, unrelenting partisanship and the extravagance of misrepresentation."^[30] To be remembered, in connection with the future developments of journalism in America, is the fact that in one of these essays he attacked those Americans and Christians who were building up fortunes through their participation in the African slave trade.^[31]

It was in the New London Gazette, beginning September 6, 1765, that Stephen Johnson published his five essays addressed to the Freemen of the colony of Connecticut. In them he not only protested against the right of the British Government to tax the colonies against their will, but, with a boldness unusual at that time, against conditions that, if continued, would result in a " bloody revolution." Like others of the men who used the pen to arouse the colonists, Johnson was a Congregational pastor. He afterwards showed on the battle field that he had the courage of his convictions.

In Virginia, "unaided by an active press they learned from nature what others learned from philosophy."^[32] While it was not through journalism or the printing-press that Virginia was to make its principal contribution to the pre-Revolutionary contest, the importance of a paper that would set forth the Whig cause was seen by no less a person than Thomas Jefferson.

In the other colonies the newspapers, as they appeared, echoed more or less vigorously the defiance proclaimed by the larger cities. No paper was published in New Hampshire until August, 1756, when Daniel Fowle started the New Hampshire Gazette at Portsmouth. It came out vigorously against the Stamp Act, and continued to be published as usual without stamps. Fowle regarded his own experience with the Boston authorities as a good example of a tyrannical government suppressing a free press, and as late as 1770 he reprinted parts of Andrew Hamilton's speech in behalf of Zenger, as matter that his countrymen should have ever in mind.

In January, 1765, the Portsmouth Mercury and Weekly Advertiser appeared. In its opening address to the public it announced that it would print all the news, even if opposed by an "arbitrary power," since the news was necessary to the people if they were to have those liberties which were "dearer to them than their lives." The paper, however, was not as well handled or printed as the Gazette, and succumbed at the end of three years.

To summarize, there were in 1775, five newspapers published in Boston, one at Salem, and one at Newburyport, making seven in Massachusetts. There was at that time one published at Portsmouth and no other in New Hampshire. One was printed at Newport, and one at Providence, making two in Rhode Island. At New London there was one, at New Haven one, and one at Hartford; in all, three in Connecticut; and thirteen in New England. In the province of New York, three papers were then published, all in the City of New York. In Pennsylvania there were on the first of January, 1775, six; three in English and one in German, in Philadelphia; one in German at Germantown; and one in English and German at Lancaster. Before the end of January, 1775, two newspapers in English were added to the number from the presses in Philadelphia, making eight in Pennsylvania. In Maryland two; one at Annapolis, and one at Baltimore. In Virginia, there were but two, both of these at Williamsburg. One was printed at Wilmington, and one at Newbern, in North Carolina; and one at Savannah in Georgia, making thirty-four newspapers in all the British colonies which are now comprised in the United States.^[33]

1. Voltaire, Age of Louis XIV, ii, 2.
2. Sparks, Works of Franklin, iii, 70.
3. Edwards, New York as an Eighteenth Century Municipality, 243.
4. Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, i, 15.
5. Independent Advertiser, January 4, 1748.
6. Pennsylvania Gazette, September 16, 1756.
7. History of Printing in America, i, 337.
8. Memorial History of Boston, ii, 392.
9. Memorial History of Boston, ii, 392.
10. Sabine, The American Loyalists, 463.
11. History of Printing in America ii, 249.
12. Massachusetts Historical Collections, i, 64-79.
13. History of Printing in America, ii, 251.
14. Familiar Letters of John Adams to His Wife, 11.
15. Jones, History of New York, i, 5.
16. Jones, History of New York, i, 26.
17. Documents Relative to Colonial History New York, viii, 213.
18. Documentary History of New York, i, 323.
19. New York Journal, February 15, 1770, 2, 3.
20. Booth, History of the City of New York, ii, 461.
21. Booth, History of the City of New York, i, 382.
22. New York Gazette, November 7, 1765.
23. New York Gazette, May 13, 1766.
24. Tyler, Literary History of the American Revolution, 64.
25. W. G. Foster, Stephen Hopkins, ii. 48.
26. Sabine, The American Loyalists, 326.
27. Sabine, The American Loyalist, 328.
28. Thomas, ii, 357, 358.
29. Memorial History of Boston, ii, 406.
30. Tyler, Literary History, 200.
31. Connecticut Gazette, July 6, 1770.
32. Bancroft, History of the United States, iii, 87.
33. History of Printing, ii, 187, 188.