ington at the same same time that the Treaty of Peace was
made public, and finding that their mission had been in vain,
almost immediately left the city. One newspaper, The National
Advertiser, printed the following amusing advertisement under
the headline " MISSING": -
Three well-looking, respectable men, who appeared to be travelling towards Washington, disappeared from Gadsby's Hotel on Monday evening last, and have not since been heard of. They were observed to be very melancholic on hearing the news of the peace, and one of them was heard to say with a sigh, "Poor Caleb Strong!" They took with them their saddlebags, so that no apprehension is entertained of their having any intention to make away with themselves. Whoever will give any information to the Hartford convention of the date of the un- fortunate and trustful gentlemen by letter (post-paid) will confer a favor upon humanity. The newspapers, particularly the Federalist newspapers, are requested to publish this advertisement in a conspicu- ous place and send in their bills to the Hartford convention.
P.S. One of the gentlemen was called Titus Gates or some such name.
The Federal press, after the Hartford Convention, steadily declined in influence. Some of its most radical organs which had opposed the war with England were forced to suspend publica- tion. Other papers, to escape a similar fate, changed parties an act which often meant a change in name, for Federalist as a title for a newspaper was almost as common at the time as was Gazette in the Colonial Period. By 1820 the Federal Party was without a single electoral vote.
NEW YORK PAPERS AT CLOSE OF WAR
At the close of the War of 1812, New York had seven daily newspapers. A statement of the circulation of these various papers will not only give an idea of how many papers the lead- ing dailies of the period were printing, but also show to what extent newspapers were being read in the city. The Mercantile Advertiser had a circulation of 2000; The Gazette, 1750; The Eve- ning Post, 1600; The Commercial Advertiser, 1200; The Courier, 920; The Columbian, 870; The National Advocate, 800. In other words, one person out of every fifteen was a newspaper sub- scriber. The small circulation of the last few papers in the list may be explained by the fact that they had been but recently
