Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Various 5 стр.

The partner of the elder Green, for a number of years, was Marmaduke Johnson, who had been sent over from England by the Commissioners of Indian affairs to assist in printing the Bible in the Indian language. He turned out badly, however, and, in two years after his arrival, was tried and convicted of making an unlawful impression upon Mr. Green's daughter. The charge in the indictment was 'for alluring the daughter of Mr. Samuel Green, printer, and drawing away her affection, without the consent of her father.' This was a direct breach of the law of the colony; for in those good times, no young lady might venture to fall in love without, like a dutiful child, asking her father's consent. But Johnson was doubly guilty, since he had a wife in England. He was therefore fined five pounds, and ordered to go home to his first love. This order, however, was for a time evaded; and he afterward found means of procuring a reconciliation with Green his wife having probably died in the mean time and of entering into a partnership with the father of his American charmer. Her prudent father, however, as is most likely, obliged her to leave off loving him, since the chronicles of those days say that the inconstant typographer was married in 1770 to Ruth Cane of Cambridge. He then began to look up in the world, and was elected to the office of constable, which in those days was much more elevated than that of sheriff is now.

In 1674 the first press was established in Boston by permission of the General Court; and two additional licensers were appointed one of whom was the Rev. Increase Mather. The printer was John Foster, who was also somewhat of an astronomer. He made and printed almanacs; but died at the early age of thirty-three. He was a man of so much consideration that two poems were published on the occasion of his death. One of them concluded with the following lines:

'Whoever,' says Isaiah Thomas, 'has read the celebrated epitaph of Franklin on himself, will have some suspicion that it was taken from this original.'

One of Green's apprentices was an Indian lad, who became master of the business, and assisted in printing Eliot's Indian Bible. When King Philip's war came on, however, his bosom was fired with amor patriæ, and he ran off and joined himself to his countrymen. Returning again, under the proclamation, after the death of the great Narragansett king, James, for such was his English name, obtained a pardon, and worked at the business for the remainder of his life. From Eliot's account of him, he was the most accurate printer in the colony the only one 'who was able to correct the press with understanding.' He printed the Psalter and several other works in the Indian language; and being always known as James the Printer, he assumed the latter as his surname. He married and reared a family by that name, whose descendants were recently living in Grafton.

The first newspaper published in North America was the Boston News Letter, commenced in April, 1704, by John Campbell. It was printed by the authority of the licensers, as a half sheet of what was then called pot paper a large size of foolscap. Campbell was a bookseller, and the postmaster of Boston. The paper was printed by Bartholomew Green. The first number contained the Queen's speech to both houses of Parliament; some notice of the attempts of the Pretender, James the Eighth of Scotland, who was said to be sending over Popish missionaries from France; three or four paragraphs of domestic intelligence; four items of ship news from Philadelphia, New York, and New London; and one advertisement by the editor. The paper was continued fifteen years, weekly, upon the half sheet of foolscap, without a rival on the continent, and continually languishing for want of support.1 In 1719 the editor made a great effort to enlarge his publication. He stated in his prospectus that he found it to be impossible, with a weekly half sheet, to carry on all the public occurrences of Europe, with those of the American colonies and the West Indies. He was then thirteen months behind the news from Europe, and to obviate the difficulty he resolved to publish every other week a full sheet of foolscap, he afterward announced, as the advantage of this enlargement, that in eight months he was able to bring down the foreign news to within five months of the date of his publication!

What a contrast between the newspaper of that day and our own! Then news from England, five months old, was fresh and racy. Now we must have it in twelve days, and even then send out fleets of newsboats from Cape Race to bring it to us two days sooner than steam can take the ship up to New York and Boston. Then, news seven days old from New York to Boston was swift enough for an express. Now, if we cannot obtain the news from Washington in less than the same number of minutes, we rave and storm, and talk of starting new telegraph companies. Then, four snug little foolscap papers a month contained all that the world was doing that any one cared to know. Now, a paper published every morning as large as a mainsail needs a supplement; and I presume there is not an editor in any of our large cities who publishes half the new matter he gets prepared.

The second American newspaper was the Boston Gazette, the first number of which was published in December, 1719, by William Brookes, the successor of Campbell as postmaster. It was printed on half a sheet of foolscap by James Franklin, brother of Benjamin Franklin, who served his apprenticeship with him. The proprietor, printer, and publisher of the Gazette, however, were soon changed; and in 1721 the New England Courant was established in Boston by James Franklin, who was both proprietor and publisher. With the establishment of this paper commenced the newspaper wars of America, which have continued ever since. Franklin, piqued at having been ousted from the Gazette, commenced attacking that journal with bitterness. He did not make the Courant so much of a newspaper as an essayist; and it was filled with discussions of the prevailing religious opinions of that day, and with attacks upon the public officers and the clergy. These essays were furnished by a society of nine literary gentlemen, who were called a set of freethinkers by some, and the 'Hell Fire Club' by others. Young Benjamin wrote some of the essays, although the authorship was not at the time known. Among other matters, inoculation for the small pox was then warmly opposed as being highly improper. The character of the paper was spirited, and its tone that of religious scepticism. It was not long in attracting much of the public attention, and in provoking the resentment of the colonial Government and clergy. The Rev. Increase Mather having been claimed in the Courant as one of its supporters, came out with a long and wrathful contradiction of the assertion. 'I can well remember,' says that eminent and excellent divine, 'when the civil Government would have taken an effectual course to suppress such a cursed libel! which, if it be not done, I am afraid that some awful judgment will come upon this land, and that the wrath of God will arise, and there will be no remedy. I cannot but pity poor Franklin, who, though but a young man, it may be, speedily he must appear before the judgment seat of God; and what answer will he be able to give for printing things so vile and abominable?' In sober truth, it would be well for all those connected with the press to bear in mind this passage from that excellent man; for who can estimate the evil of even one lie, once put into circulation?

It was not long before Franklin was arrested by the Government, and imprisoned four weeks in the common jail, for the conduct of his paper. The council also published an order, setting forth that Franklin had published many passages, boldly reflecting upon the Government of the province, the ministry, the churches, and the college, and that it often contained paragraphs tending to fill the readers' minds with vanity to the dishonor of God, and the service of good men in consequence of which, it was resolved that nothing should be published in the said colony, that had not been first perused and allowed by the secretary of the colony.

The order does not seem to have been enforced; and the first number of the paper, after James Franklin's release, contained another essay from the club, of increased boldness. It was headed by a sort of a text as follows: 'And then, after they had anathematized and cursed a man to the devil, and the devil would not, or did not, take him, then to make the sheriff and the jailer take the devil's leavings.'

Other publications, equally liberal, and equally offensive to the civil authorities, were brought before both Houses of the General Court, and a joint committee was appointed to consider and report. This committee reported that the tendency of Franklin's paper was 'to mock religion and bring it into contempt.' They therefore recommended that James Franklin be prohibited from publishing anything not previously examined and approved by the secretary. The recommendation was adopted, but Franklin again disregarded the order, for which he was prosecuted for a contempt of the General Court; but the jury ignored the bill. He was, however, bound to good behavior, in conformity to the order of the General Court.

These proceedings were severely attacked in the American Weekly Mercury, which by that time had been established in Philadelphia; and the Assembly of the Province of Massachusetts was denounced as being made up of oppressors and bigots, who made religion only an engine of destruction to the people. Their public officers were proclaimed to be remarkable for their hypocrisy, raised up as 'a scourge in the hands of the Almighty for the sins of the people.'

These attacks were undoubtedly written by the club in Boston and sent to Philadelphia for publication. But neither the club nor James Franklin would submit to the order of the Court; and for the purpose of evading it, the name of James was taken out of the paper, and that of Benjamin substituted. The latter was then a minor, and this was the first introduction of his name into public life. But though a poor printer's lad, the name thus first used as a shield for others who were behind the curtains, has since challenged the world for illustrious deeds of his own.

With this change of the name of the publisher, came a new prospectus, probably the first effort of the kind, of the then youthful philosopher. This prospectus was rather an odd one, as will be seen by the following extract: 'The main design of this weekly will be to entertain the town with the most comical and diverting incidents of human life; which in so large a place as Boston will not fail of a universal exemplification. Nor shall we be wanting to fill up these papers with a grateful interspersion of more serious morals, which may be drawn from the most ludicrous and odd parts of human life.'

The character of the paper, however, does not appear to have been changed for the better by the change of names. It was continued in the name of Benjamin Franklin some time after he had left it; but the members of the club at length grew wearied with the labor, and the paper expired in 1727. James Franklin then removed to Rhode Island, and established the first newspaper in that State, at Newport.

It remains to notice but one more of the early Boston editors, who seems to have been an odd fish somewhat witty, but, to use a homely proverb, 'as rough as a rat-catcher's dog.' He first established the Boston Weekly Rehearsal, in 1731, and afterward the Boston Evening Post. His name was Thomas Fleet. Massachusetts was then a slaveholding country, and Fleet owned several negroes, two of whom he instructed in the art of printing. Their names were Pompey and Cæsar the only two Romans, I believe, who ever belonged to the printing fraternity. These honest fellows lived and printed until after the war of the Revolution, having become freemen by the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. Fleet was droll and witty in the conduct of his paper, especially in his advertisements. Witness the following advertisement of one of his negro women for sale: 'To be sold, by the printer of this paper, the very best negro woman in this town, who has had the small pox and the measles; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, will work like a beaver.'

There was a common evil existing in those days which, it is to be feared, has now become chronic. People were prone to omit paying for their newspapers. Fleet had often to complain of this crying sin, even against men of great religious professions. On one occasion he read them quite a severe lesson upon their injustice and oppression in this respect. 'Every one,' says he, 'thinks he has a right to read news, but few find themselves inclined to pay for it. 'Tis a great pity a soil that will bear piety so well, should not produce a tolerable crop of common honesty.'

It is, moreover, slanderously reported in the ancient chronicles, that Fleet was not blessed with the most beautiful and sweet-tempered wife and daughters in Boston. On one occasion he invited a friend to dine with him on pouts, a kind of fish then esteemed a great delicacy, and of which he knew his friend to be remarkably fond. His domestic matters, however, did not move along very smoothly that morning, and when they sat down to table, the gentleman remarked that the pouts were wanting.

'Oh no,' said Fleet, 'only look at my wife and daughters!'

Twenty-one years elapsed from the establishment of a newspaper in Boston, before William Bradford commenced the New York Gazette, in October, 1725. It was printed on a half sheet of foolscap, with a large and almost wornout type. There is a large volume of these papers in the New York City Library, in good preservation. The advertisements do not average more than three or four a week, and these are mostly of runaway negroes. The ship news was diminutive enough; now and then a ship, and some half a dozen sloops arriving and leaving in the course of the week. Such was the daily paper published in the commercial metropolis of the United States, one hundred and thirty-eight years ago!

Eight years after the establishment of Bradford's Gazette, the New York Weekly Journal was commenced by John Philip Zengar. This paper was established for the purpose of opposing the colonial administration of Governor Crosby, under the patronage, as was supposed, of the Honorable Rip Van Dam, who had previously discharged the duties of the executive office, as President of the Council. The first great libel suit tried in New York was instituted by the Government in 1734 against Zengar. He was imprisoned by virtue of a warrant from the Governor and Council; and a concurrence of the House of Representatives in the prosecution was requested. The House, however, declined. The Governor and Council then ordered the libellous papers to be burned by the common hangman, or whipper, near the pillory. But both the common whipper and the common hangman were officers of the corporation, not of the Crown, and they declined officiating at the illumination. The papers were therefore burned by the sheriff's deputy at the order of the Governor. An ineffectual attempt was next made to procure an indictment against Zengar, but the grand jury refused to find a bill. The Attorney-General was then directed to file no information against him for printing the libels, and he was kept in prison until another term. His counsel offered exceptions to the commissions of the judges, which the latter not only refused to hear, but excluded his counsel, Messrs. Smith and Alexander, from the bar. Zengar then obtained other counsel John Chambers, of New York, and Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia. The trial at length came on, and excited great interest. The truth, under the old English law of libel, could never be given in evidence, and was of course excluded on the present trial. Hamilton nevertheless tried the case with great ability. He showed the jury that they were the judges as well of the law as of the fact, and Zengar was acquitted. The verdict was received with cheers by the audience; and the corporation voted the freedom of the city to Andrew Hamilton, 'for the remarkable service done to the inhabitants of this city and colony, by his defence of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the press.' The certificate was sent to Mr. Hamilton by Mr. Stephen Bayard in a superb gold box, on the lid of which were engraved the arms of the city with several classical and appropriate mottoes.