History of Journalism in the United States/Chapter 8

by George Henry Payne

CHAPTER VIII

THE BOSTON GAZETTE AND SAMUEL ADAMS

Adams a great journalist—His remarkable industry—Associated with Jonathan Mayhew—New group takes up patriotic struggle—Gazette office headquarters of patriots—Boston Tea Party planned there—James Otis and Joseph Warren among editorial contributors—Important contributions of John Adams—Notable writings of Samuel Adams—Attacks on Gazette—Edes and Gill threatened—The days before the Revolution—Edes dies in obscure poverty.

If Massachusetts was the leader in the events before the Revolution, and she unquestionably was, Samuel Adams was the leader in Massachusetts, and the organ through which he swayed the people was the Boston Gazette. There is not an American schoolboy who is not familiar with the names of Samuel Adams, "Father of the Revolution "and of John Adams, "Statesman of the Revolution," but probably very few people are fully aware of the great extent to which these two used, and how much they relied on, that very important pre-Revolutionary newspaper.

The history of the Boston Gazette is the history of its influence, which came not only from its notable contributors, but from its courageous and able editors and printers, Benjamin Edes and John Gill. It takes not a tithe from the statesmanlike reputation of Sam Adams that he was, after Franklin, America's greatest journalist, though indifference to this aspect of his career has been the attitude of most of the historians of this period.

In order to write adequately the history of journalism, it is necessary to re-read the documents and publications of this period; even the writers of later date have written under the prejudice against journalism that marked its beginning. It is not until we have such modern and broad-minded historians as Rhodes, McMaster and Roosevelt that we begin to get a proper appreciation of the part played by journalism, even in the primitive sections.

Samuel Adams was born in Boston in 1722, and graduated from Harvard in 1740. An undergraduate essay was on "Liberty," showing the drift of his mind; and, from the time when it became evident to him that there could not be happiness in the colonies until England had receded from her position, he never neglected an opportunity to stir the colonists in every way possible.

His biographer tells us that the Boston people, going home late at night, would pause as they passed his window, where the lights shone far into the morning hours, and observe that it was "old Sam Adams "writing the pieces for the paper that roused his countrymen to a sense of their wrongs. It was not alone what he wrote himself, but what he succeeded in getting others to write, that stirred the people. He was an industrious editor, engaged in a great campaign, continually suggesting to able men that they take up this or that question in the public press. So anxious was he to get matter into the papers that one of Governor Bernard's spies was able to tell of a quarrel between Otis and Adams over the latter's desire to rush into print.

It has been said that he had the instinct "of a great journalist willing to screen his individuality behind his journal." We have heard little of Samuel Adams, journalist, because it was not in journalism itself, any more than it was in literature or in oratory, that he was interested. Journalism, literature, oratory, for him were but means by which the people were aroused. His very anonymity made him a power, and from 1755 to the breaking out of the war, though he was the most industrious, the most effective and the most able of the men writing for the papers, he was the least identified. He seldom, if ever, published anything under his own name, but carried on, sometimes over periods of several years, controversies under different noms de plume. His biographer gives a list of twenty-five of these disguises that he assumed, among them: "An American," "A Tory," "A Son of Liberty," "An Elector in 1771," "Candidus," "Determinatus," "Populus," "Cedant Arma Togae," "Principiis Obsta," "A Religious Polltician," and "Shippen."^[1]

We have seen in the previous chapter how Adams began his fight for liberty by the formation of a club and, after its formation, by the publication of the Independent Advertiser. He was then a young man of twenty-six. When the paper failed, because of business difficulties, he was still very young—only twenty-eight. Between that time and the start of the Boston Gazette in 1755, he became a man of maturity, a statesman, a ripened combatant. During those five years he gathered about him the men who were to be famous as the group that defied England, brought about the Revolutionary War and inaugurated the movement that led to American independence.

In the columns of the Independent Advertiser was printed the sermon of Jonathan Mayhew, in which the distinguished Unitarian set forth the idea that these colonies should be not only free and independent, but should become a republic. This sermon has been called "The Morning Gun of the Revolution,"^[2] Mayhew died, but in the two years that the Independent Advertiser was being published, Adams had opportunity to study and gauge the men in the community who might be drawn together in the fight which he had undertaken. John Adams soon became closely associated with him in the group, which numbered, among others, such men as James Otis, Oxenbridge Thatcher and Joseph Warren.

The office of the Boston Gazette, on Court Street, was recognized as the headquarters of the Revolutionary leaders, and here Warren, Otis, Quincy, John Adams, Church and others less known, held frequent meetings. Here they watched the public sentiment of the country respond to their publications, read the exchanges, went over the proofs of their contributions, in fact went through what to-day would be considered an editorial council. It was in the back room of the Gazette office that the "Boston Tea-Party "was planned.

It was said that the ablest and most interesting of all the proteges of Samuel Adams was Joseph Warren. Warren was then about twenty-seven years of age and for some years had been a contributor to the newspapers, thereby attracting to himself the attention and respect of Adams. In February, 1768, he vigorously attacked Governor Bernard in the Gazette. His attack "drew blood," for Bernard endeavored to have the legislature act in the matter, and, upon its refusal, prorogued that body.

James Otis was the counterpoise for the impetuous Samuel Adams. He was the scholar and the cultivated writer. In 1762 he published a pamphlet, "A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay." John Adams later said that it contained most of the solid thought of the philosophic writings of the Revolution. It was Otis who aroused John Adams with his speech against the Writs of Assistance and brought him into the newspaper circle, and he was the one patriot whom Governor Hutchinson challenged to a newspaper duel, grimly informing Otis that he had "been cutting out work for him in the papers." ^[3]

Another brilliant contributor was Josiah Quincy, Jr., who was admitted to the Bar in 1768. When the British soldiers made their appearance in Boston, he published in the Gazette of that year, under the signature of "Hyperion," a series of essays. Joseph Warren's oration on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre in 1772, though he defended the soldiers against the popular feeling, stirred the imagination of the patriots; printed in the Boston Gazette on March 17, 1775, it was copied throughout the colonies.

The part played by his kinsman, John Adams of Braintree, is second only to that of Samuel Adams himself, though the "Statesman of the Revolution "had not the direct hand in either the journalistic or the political divisions that the Boston Adams had. The fire that burned in the mind of John Adams was very often rekindled by the ardor of Sam Adams. It was the literary art that fascinated the man who was to be the second President of the United States; it was the idea, the cause, that inspired the "Father of the Revolution." John Adams' more conservative soul rebelled at the excesses of the newspapers, and yet there is a great tribute to Messrs. Edes and Gill in his dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, which was printed in the Boston Gazette in four numbers, and which, like so many other writings of the day, both in newspapers and pamphlets, was an endeavor to find a legal basis for getting rid of the tyranny of the British Government.

In 1774 and 1775 John Adams wrote the "Novanglus " letters, which were among the most important contributions to the Boston Gazette. They were answers to letters that had been written by Daniel Leonard and printed in the Massachusetts Gazette,—one of the names of the Weekly Advertiser. Leonard's letters defended the course of the English Government and tried to make it appear that the colonists had no substantial grievance. Adams was then opening the congress in Philadelphia and when he returned and found that these letters, which were signed "Massachusettsensis," were making a deep impression, he began his series of letters in the Gazette, defending the course of the colonies in declaring' that America would defend her rights and that submission was not to be thought of.

The last of these letters appeared with the date of April 17, 1775. Two days later, April 19th, the battle of Lexington took place, and the newspaper war gave way to the fight of arms. These letters were reprinted during the war and were widely read, both then and afterward. In the words of Charles Francis Adams, " they formed a masterly commentary on the whole history of American taxation and the rise of the Revolution."

When we come to discuss Sam Adams' own part, it must be said first, that never before in the history of a people had there been such a successful endeavor to conduct a public issue within peaceful lines, while, at the same time, nothing was omitted that would arouse the public to a full sense of the importance of the events that were taking place. English historians, even in this cen tury, comment with amazement on the fact that the same public that called for the punishment of those British soldiers who were responsible for the Boston Massacre viewed with calmness the spectacle of the defense of these same "murderers "by John Adams and Josiah Quincy; and immediately after the verdict—in which all but two were acquitted—chose John Adams for their representative in the Assembly. For this condition credit belongs more to Sam Adams than to any other individual.

He showed his leadership in many ways; not the least was in making himself very popular among the mechanics and laborers. When he could not pour forth his convictions at a town meeting, he would harangue the ship carpenters working on a block of wood above the tide, or debate with a small shopkeeper, caught in a leisure moment. Nor was this enough; the day done, in a study adjoining his bedroom, he wrote night after night. His right to the title of "Father of the Revolution "rests on many instances of his initiative, but principally on the fact that he drafted the first public denial of the right of the British Parliament to put in operation Grenville's scheme of the Stamp Act, and that in this document he made the first suggestion of the union of the colonies for the purpose of redressing their grievances. He was appointed, in May, 1769, a member of the Committee to instruct the Representatives just elected and the Committee left the drafting of 'the instructions to Adams alone.

It was in the following September, when Adams was again appointed to prepare instructions—these instructions taking the place of the political platform of today, that he collaborated with his kinsman, John Adams, who had been delegated to undertake a similar task for the representatives of Braintree. This was a histor collaboration, an important event in the history of the American Revolution.

The Boston Gazette printed these documents and they went through all the towns in Massachusetts, becoming the platform of the Province. In 1772, Sam Adams organized the Committee of Correspondence in more than eighty towns, and no town was without its copy of the Gazette.

Never was there more artful journalism than that in which the Boston Massacre was used to inflame the public mind. It might be said that Adams showed himself a consummate reporter. He was always in the court, and followed the trial carefully, consistently taking notes and then printing over the signature of "Vindex," his own review of the case. He was a believer in "shirt sleeve diplomacy." When he sent Franklin a long letter, retailing the grievances of the colonies against the government, he printed the letter in the Boston Gazette.

In a communication to the Gazette in December, 1768, written under the nom de plume of "Vindex," he showed his political sagacity when he pressed home on an English opponent of America the argument that if the colonists admitted they had no right to be represented when taxed, they were admitting that they were slaves, and that their property was not actually their own. However faulty the logic, the point roused the colonists and was the beginning of limitless discussion.

The illegality and uselessness of billeting troops was a theme with which it was easy to stir his readers; and it can be easily imagined what the effect was on those hardy New Englanders, resentful to the core, when they read his appeal:

"I know very well that some of the late contenders for a right in the British Parliament to tax Americans who are not, and cannot be, represented there, have denied this. When pressed with that fundamental principle of nature and the constitution, that what is a man's own is absolutely his own, and that no man can have a right to take it from him without his consent, they have alleged, and would fain have us believe, that by far the greater part of the people in Britain are excluded the right of choosing their representatives, and yet are taxed; and that therefore they are taxed without their consent. Had not this doctrine been repeatedly urged, I should have thought the bare mentioning it would have opened the eyes of the people there to have seen where their pretended advocates were leading them: that in order to establish a right in the people of England to enslave the colonists under the plausible show of great zeal for the honor of the nation, they are driven to a bold assertion, at all adventures, that truly the greater part of the nation are themselves subject to the same yoke of bondage. What else is it but saying that the greater part of the people of Britain are slaves? For if the fruit of all their toil E^nd industry depends upon so precarious a tenure as the will of a few, what security have they for the utmost farthing? What are they but slaves, delving with the sweat of their brows, not for the benefit of themselves, but their masters? After all the fine things that have been said of the British Constitution and the boasted freedom and happiness of the subjects who live under it, will they thank these modern writers, these zealous asserters of the honor of the nation, for reducing them to a state inferior to that of indented servants, who generally contract for a maintenance, at least, for their labor?"^[4]

As the tragic hour approached, his appeal became more ardent: "Is it not enough," he cried, "to have a Governor an avowed advocate for ministerial measures, and a most assiduous instrument in carrying them on, model'd, shaped, controul'd and directed, totally independent of the people over whom he is commissioned to govern, and yet absolutely dependent upon the Crown, pension'd by those on whom his existence depends, and paid out of a revenue establish'd by those who have no authority to establish it, and extorted from the people in a manner most odious, insulting and oppressive? Is not this indignity enough to be felt by those who have any feeling? Are we still threatened with more?"^[5]

At length, as "Observations "in the Boston Gasette, September 27, 1773, Samuel Adams wrote:

"This very important dispute between Britain and America has, for a long time, employed the pens of statesmen in both countries, but no plan of union is yet agreed on between them; the dispute still continues and everything floats in uncertainty. As I have long conplated the subject with fixed attention, I beg leave to offer a proposal to my countrymen, namely, that a CONGRESS OF AMERICAN STATES shall be assembled as soon as possible, draw up a Bill of Rights, and publish it to the world; choose an ambassador to reside at the British Court to act for the United colonists; appoint where the congress shall annually meet, and how it may be summoned upon any extraordinary occasion, what further steps are necessary to be taken, etc." ^[6]

Three weeks later, October nth, in the Gazette, appeared the following:

"But the question will be asked—How shall the colonies force their Oppressors to proper Terms? This question has been often answered already by our Politicians, viz: 'Form an Independent State,' 'An American COMMONWEALTH.' This plan has been proposed, and I can't find that any other is likely to answer the great Purpose of preserving our Liberties. I hope, therefore, it will be well digested and forwarded to be in due Time put into Execution, unless our Political Fathers can secure American Liberties in some other Way. As the Population, Wealth and Power of this Continent are swiftly increasing, we certainly have no Cause to doubt of our Success in maintaining Liberty by forming a Commonwealth, or whatever Measure Wisdom may point out for the preservation of the Rights of America."

John Adams, Thomas Cushing, Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams departed for Philadelphia, and Congress was established; when it adjourned, October 26th, a special convention was appointed for May 20, 1775. The battle that Adams had made had been won, to a very large extent, for it was not Adams against the British Government; it was not Boston against the British Government; it was not even New England against the British Government; it was the united colonies of America that had taken up the war begun in Boston, practically by a single individual. .

It must not be assumed that the Boston Gazette was allowed to have the field unattacked. Governor Hutchinson was keenly sensitive to the fact that seven-eighths of the people of Boston—the calculation is his own—read no paper but the Boston Gazette, and for that reason the Massachusetts Gazette (the old News-Letter) was furnished with articles and built up in every way possible that it might hold its own against the Boston Gazette and Adams. The Massachusetts Gazette, which was also known as Draper's Gazette, was paid liberally, but no matter how well paid the contributors were, the Tory papers were unable to obtain a large circulation. The two most important writers were Thomas Hutchinson himself and Jonathan Sewall, the Attorney-General of Massachusetts, the latter being the most forceful contributor to the Royalist papers. Hutchinson, a man who ^undoubtedly loved his country, a man of unquestioned ability, was almost a match for Adams. He drew to him also Daniel Leonard, one of the ablest writers of the time.

When we come to the Boston Gazette itself, it is well to remember that, though the newspapers were small in size and poorly printed, they exerted a powerful influence; their appeals reached practically every threshold, and through them "the sense of national life was becoming intense and vivid." The mind of America at this time was very keen. Montesquieu, Priestley, Bacon, Bolingbroke, Milton, Locke and Harrington were quoted and known almost in the wilderness, and Edmund Burke was able to say "I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England."^[7]

History must ever be grateful that Benjamin Edes and John Gill were bold and fearless publishers. The Stamp Act and the Boston Massacre, the Tea Tax and the closing of the port of Boston, the conduct of the British soldiers and many oppressive measures against the colonies were handled in this paper in a way to arouse the indignation of the colonists and to make patriots of them. The Gazette was "a great power in the community. Rarely in our history has a single newspaper met a difficult crisis, maintained its principles with more splendid ability, or exercised so powerful an influence over the minds of men."^[8] Governor Bernard himself declared it the most "factious newspaper "in America, while the copies sent abroad gave to the thoughtful men of Europe the first insight into the profound character and understanding of the men who were leading the Revolutionary movement. But no greater tribute could be paid than that of John Adams, printed in the paper and addressed to Edes and Gill:

"But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America than the press," he said. "Care should be taken that the art of printing should be encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his thoughts to the public. And you, Messieurs printers, whatever the tyrants of the earth may say of your paper, have done important service to your country by your readiness and freedom in publishing the speculations of the curious. The stale, impudent insinuations of slander and sedition, with which the gormandizers of power have endeavored to discredit your paper, are so much the more to your honor. … And if the public interest, liberty, and happiness have been in danger from the ambition or avarice of any great man, whatever might be his politeness, address, learning, ingenuity, and, in other respects, integrity and humanity, you have done yourselves honor and your country service by publishing and pointing out that avarice and ambition. … Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretences of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice. Much less, I presume, will you be discouraged by any pretenses that malignants on this side the water will represent your paper as factious and seditious, or that the great on the other side the water will take offense at them. . . . I must and will repeat it, your paper deserves the patronage of every friend to his country. And whether the defamers of it are array«d in robes of scarlet or sable, whether they lurk and skulk in an insurance office, whether they assume the venerable character of a priest, the sly one of a scrivener, or the dirty, infamous, abandoned one of an informer, they are all the creatures and tools of the lust of domination."^[9]

These are noble words indeed, and as we go on with our story, they will be worth recalling, when we come to realize that they were used by the same man who later on, when President of the United States, was the supporter of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the failure of which was necessary in order to put an end to the endeavor in this country to shackle the press.

Of all the patriots, it was Sam Adams whose head the British Government most desired. Edes and Gill, too, were openly threatened, as was Isaiah Thomas, the publisher of the Massachusetts Spy, referred to in a previous chapter. The decision to move on the stores at Lexington and to put an end to the military training was, to every patriot, the call to arms. At the same time that the Massachusetts Spy suspended and started moving its types and press to Worcester, Edes quietly moved an old press and one or two improved fonts of type to Watertown, and there the paper was printed until the evacuation of Boston by the British, when he returned in November, 1776. The partnership seems to have been dissolved when Edes decided to move the paper to Watertown and Gill remained in Boston.^[10]

Wheh Edes returned and resumed publication, he took into partnership his two sons, Benjamin and Peter, until 1784, when Peter retired from the scene and in 1795 started the Kennebec, Maine, Intelligencer. The Gor zette was continued until 1798 by the old man himself, his sons having left him. The year before it was discontinued, in the issue of January i, 1797, he began his salutation with the statement that "The aged editor of the Gazette presents the compliments of the season to his generous benefactors, and invites all those who have any demands on him to call and receive their dues; "this gentle introduction leads into the main purpose of the salutation, which is to ask the many who owe him money, especially those who are two, three or more years in debt, to discharge their arrears, "as the editor has found it impossible to live upon the wind and promises equally uncertain."

He recalls the time when the Gazette was a power; when its circulation was "upward of 2,000." He now states that he has only a circulation of 400 and hardly any advertisements.

The following September, the paper, at the close of its forty-third year, went out of existence. In his valedictory, the old editor states sorrowfully: "The cause of liberty is not always the channel of preferment for pecuniary reward." He recalls the fact that Adams, Hancock and Otis were his chosen intimates in the days when the country was in danger; and advises his countrymen to cherish their liberties and maintain their virtues. He bids them farewell. "It is beneath a patriot to mourn his own misfortunes."^[11]

A visitor found him in 1801, in a house on Temple Street, Boston, "with spectacles on nose, a venerable old man, bent over the case, setting type for shop bills, while an elderly female, his daughter, beat and pulled at the press," the last picture of the pioneers of American Liberty. Two years later, neglected, forgotten, weighed down with poverty, he died.

1. Wells, Life of Adams.
2. Memorial History of Boston, iii, 119.
3. Tudor, Life of James Otis, 102.
4. Boston Gazette, December 19, 1768.
5. Ibid, October 2, 1772.
6. Hosmer, Samuel Adams, 238.
7. House of Commons, March 22, 1775.
8. Memorial History of Boston, iii, 134.
9. Life and Works of John Adams, iii, 457, 438.
10. Nelson, i, 267.
11. Buckingham, i, 205.