CHAPTER II
PRECURSORS OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS
Among the broadsides published in New England during the early colonial days, to correct false reports, may be found certain printed sheets so closely resembling a newspaper that such a term has been applied to them. While they did give some domestic news of the colonies and while they were printed to sell as news sheets, they had no regularity in publication, being issued only once. Consequently, they are to be regarded as the precursors of the newspaper press and not as real newspapers.
GREEN'S BROADSIDE
One of the earliest of these broadsides in some ways the most important—was The Present State of the New-English Affairs (1689). It was a single sheet, 8 × 14½ inches, printed on only one side. Its printer and publisher was Samuel Green. The first part consisted of an extract from a letter of the Reverend Increase Mather, dated at Deal in Kent, to Simon Baldwin, Governor of the Massachusetts colony in New England. The most important item in the sheet was a "passage extracted from the publick News-Letter" (of London) for July 6, 1689. Because the extract has historical value and at the same time shows, to a certain extent, the kind of news found in The London News-Letter, it is worth quotation:—
The people of New England having made a thorow Revolution, and secured the publick Criminals. On Thursday last, the Reverend and Learned Mr. Mather, President of the Colledge, and Minister of Boston, waited on the King; and in a most Excellent Speech laid before His Majesty, the State of that People; saying, That they were sober, and Industrious, and fit for Martial Service; and all with their Lives and Interests were at His Majesties Command, to tender the same unto His Majesty: That they desired nothing but His Majesties Acceptance of what they had done, and His Protection; and that if His Majesty pleased to encourage and Commission them, He might easily be Em-
