CHAPTER II.
FROM THE IMPOSITION OF THE STAMP DUTY TO MR FOX'S LIBEL BILL.
1712-1792.
What wondrous labors of the press and pen;
Diurnal most, some thrice each week affords,
Some only once—Oh, avarice of words!
Endless it were to sing the powers of all,
Their names, their numbers; how they rise and fall.
Crabbe.
RELIEVED from the restrictions of the censorship, the closing years of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed a great development of newspaper enterprise. During the reign of William and Mary, and in the early years of Anne, the English Press enjoyed, in fact, a freedom from Government control and taxation denied to it for the century and a half which followed the imposition of the Stamp Duty. In 1702, the closing year of William's reign, the earliest daily newspaper was started in this country under the title of the Daily Courant, and, as the pioneer of the great daily journals of to-day, deservedly enjoyed, after some early difficulties, a lengthened and prosperous existence. One small folio page of printed matter was all that this first daily journal contained. It was announced to the public in the following quaint terms:—"This Courant (as the title shews) will be Published Daily; being designed to give all the Material News as soon as every Post arrives; and is confined to half the Compass to save the Publick
