The Daily Courant, March 8.
SEveral printed papers having been published and disperfed under the title of Novelles Ecclesiastiques; it takes notice that their arrets condemn every thing not printed by authority and all anonymous writings whatsoever.
Observes, that if regard be had to the first Principles of publick order, there is no policy, tho' ever so irregular, that can bear with a person unknown thus voluntarily to set himself up for a disperser of news, and an arbitrator of facts, without any other warrant than the obscurity, which shelters him; anticipating the opinion of the publick; and passing sentence and censures upon other Peoples conduct and reputation.
Shews the bad use is made of this liberty; which has been discover'd in facts, in those papers, taken upon trust, calumnious imputations, barbarous suspicions, which ought no where to be publish'd without proof, much less without a name; a freedom of style and strokes of satyr, often directly contrary to the respect due to the the secular and ecclesiastical powers.
That in despite of authority that Journal is carry'd on more boldly than ever, supported, say the authors, by the hand of God; thus vainly covering themselves under the pretence of religion, which never pointed to such methods.
That for these reasons 'twas thought but necessary to condemn, proscribe and suppress it by all the effectual means they could think of.
The Hyp Doctor, March 9. No. 13.
COnsiders the depredations made by the Spaniards on our shipping in the West Indies, which he says merrily, ought to be chalk'd up to the score of the present ministry for the following reasons, viz. 1. Some of those depredations were none at all. 2. Many of them are dated before the time of the present ministry, others while Spain was at variance with us. 3. Those made by Pyrates, as much as those suppos'd to be done by Guarda Costa's, are alike charg'd to the present ministry, and by the same reason all depredations by land might be charg'd on the administration. 4. Depredations by guttling and tippling, junketting, gossiping, gaming, &c. are to be all item'd to the government.
Goes on in a strain of banter and ridicule to charge all the petty, trifling losses, sustain'd in private Life, to the account of the present ministry.
Having finish'd his burlesque, he adds a chronicle of blunders in Fog and D'anvers on saturday last. 1. Fog begins with a Letter on the description of an inconstant Man, a Tory-Whig, a Weathercock; and yet has the inconstancy to end with another for Mr. Du Pless, who certainly was a Whig, when in the King's service, and did not Fog now think him a Tory for being out of it, he would hardly have recommended him in his Paper. (See extracts of three letters in Fog p. 101.) 2. Fog's condemning inconstancy to party is a libel on Mr. P-t-y and my L-B-ke, as well as on all Jacobites who have taken the oaths since the revolution: by which he makes his Tories Weathercocks. 3 The Craftsman hopes the publick will be a just indignation against those scandalous, venal writers, for the fake of a single man: by which he must mean himself and fellow-labourers, who write for Mr. P-y, to turn a penny, and over-turn all for two pence. 4. Caleb in these words, if meant of others, denies that liberty of the press to those writers, which himself asserts. 5. Caleb calls the publishers Peele and Roberts, midwives; by the same rule his publisher is one, and H- B- and W- P- are wet nurfes.
(See more of this Writer, p. 66.)
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