This epigram was soon cancelled, and the magic verbal triumvirate "Vincit Amor Patriæ" flaunted in its place. The subscription was 8s. per quarter if paid in advance, 10s. if paid on the day it fell due, and 12s. 6d. on further credit; 3s. for a six-line advertisement.
The locus of the Printing and Publishing Office of the Patriot having become a matter of some doubt, an amusing controversy on the subject was carried on in the Correspondence Columns of the Argus in November, 1884, and to this I am indebted for the following particulars:—
Mr. William Beaver, who was apprenticed to Mr. Fawkner in June, 1839 (and the first trade apprentice in Victoria), declares that the paper "was first printed in the top storey of Fawkner's Hotel (now the Union Club Hotel, corner of Collins and Market Streets). Mr. Fawkner having let the hotel to the Melbourne Club, the paper was shifted to a new two-storey brick building alongside (where the Colonial Mutual Insurance Society is now). A Mr. Rowe had a chemist's shop in the front room below. Some time afterwards the Patriot was shifted to an old range of wooden and wattle-and daub buildings at the rear, formerly used as stables, and the entrance to which was from what we used to call the Market Square, or what is now called the Market Buildings. The paper was published for many years in the before-mentioned building facing Collins Street.
"I was at work on the Argus when it was first published, and well remember the difficulties we experienced in turning out the paper. As an illustration of the difference between that period and now in printing papers, I may mention that when I first went to Mr. Fawkner's office we used to get out the Patriot with the assistance of Mr. Watkins, another compositor, facetiously called 'Tar-box,' and myself. Mr. Fawkner used to assist a little by setting up type. The press was a wooden two-pull one, and we used ink-balls for rollers. The old press can still be seen in the Museum attached to the Public Library, and I think it used to take us all day to print two or three hundred copies."
Mr. R. T. Clarke, who still plies the typo. business in Moor Street, Fitzroy, writes thus:— "Arrived in Melbourne on the 1st September, 1839, under an agreement with Mr. J. P. Fawkner I remained with him seven years, and am therefore in a position to give some information upon the subject. When the back weather-board premises were built I and my wife resided there. At that time Mr. Fawkner had only a wooden pot press, with two pulls. Mr. Dowling, of Launceston, sent him a double-demy press, with a plant of new type. That was the reason the premises were built."
During the year the two journals had the field all to themselves. It was Arden's intention to conduct the Gazette in a gentlemanly, high-toned style, but Fawkner's "Billingsgate" now and then forced him off his stilts into the mud, for he was compelled to resort to the same armoury for offensive and defensive weapons as his antagonist. If a man pelts you with puddle-balls it is folly to retaliate with flowers, either rhetorical or botanical. However, as between the two journals no literary comparison could be instituted, for there were at times in the Gazette leading articles, or rather essays, that would do credit to any publication, but as a newspaper the Patriot presented more variety of facts. As records of the events of the then small community neither journal was equal to the occasion.
I have now before me a copy of each journal issued in November, 1839. Neither can be accounted broadsheets, for the Gazette measured 17 in. by 11 in. and the Patriot only 13 in. by 8 in., but the former is a four-columned sheet, and the latter a double three-columned one. On submitting them for the opinion of a specialist, a printer of many years' experience, he returned them with the following memo.:— "It appears to me that both papers, viz., the Port Phillip Gazette and the Patriot must have presented a very creditable appearance when published forty-six years ago, as times then went, considering the great difficulty there must then have been towards all due and proper appliances for the purpose of producing a paper; as also the difficulty in those early days of securing the skilled labour to produce anything properly readable. The Patriot appears to be printed in some parts of its pages with already very old and much-worn type, with mixed founts, and with a bad ink, which makes it look worse still; but in those days this was not so much accounted of as now. The Gazette is printed from a better and newer type, and generally has a more printer-like style, and slightly more modern appearance in its general get-up than the Patriot, though both papers are of the same month and same year, and both produced in Melbourne in November, 1839. I cannot but think that, for those times and under all the circumstances, they were excellent productions."
