rant. The only one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being in their judgment enough for America. At this time, 1771, there are not less than five-and-twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking. I was employed to carry the papers to the customers, after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets. . . .
My brother's discharge was accompanied with an order, and a very odd one, that "James Franklin no longer print the newspaper called The New England Courant" On consultation held in our printingoffice amongst his friends, what he should do in this conjuncture, it was proposed to elude the order by changing the name of the paper. But my brother, seeing inconvenience in this, came to a conclusion, as a better way, to let the paper in future be printed in the name of Benjamin Franklin; and in order to avoid the censure of the Assembly, that might fall on him, as still printing it by his apprentice, he contrived and consented that my old indenture should be returned to me with a discharge on the back of it, to show in case of necessity; and, in order to secure to him the benefit of my service, I should sign new indentures for the remainder of my time, which were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was; however, it was immediately executed, and the paper was printed accordingly, under my name, for several months.
The fact not to be lost sight of is that every such conflict with the civil authorities brought the freedom of the press a little nearer its realization. Another fact, almost equally as important, was that liberty of the press not only in England, but also in America has been intimately associated with liberty of religious worship and that freedom in both was simultaneous in New England. The Courant was probably discontinued in 1727.
FIRST PENNSYLVANIA PAPER
On December 22, 1719, the Tuesday following the Monday on which The Boston Gazette was established, The American Weekly Mercury, the first newspaper in the middle colonies and the third paper in America, appeared in Philadelphia from the press of Andrew Bradford, the local postmaster and a son of William Bradford, who was to be the publisher of the first newspaper in New York. At first, the paper was sold by "Andrew Bradford at The Bible in the Second Street and John Copson in the High Street," but on May 25, 1721, Copson's name was
