Benjamin Franklin as a Journalist. 77

CHAPTER IV.

THE REAPPEARANCE OF THE FRANKLINS.

THE WAY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN STARTED A PAPER IN PHILADELPHIA.— THE FLEETS IN BOSTON.-THE FASHIONS.-ZENGER'S NEW YORK JOURNAL. THE FIRST LIBEL SUIT.-ANDREW HAMILTON'S GREAT SPEECH.— THE POPULAR VERDICT. THE DAWN OF LIBERTY.-THE NEW YORK GAZETTE AGAIN. THE POST-BOY.—JAMES FRANKLIN IN NEWPORT.—THE RHODE ISLAND GAZETTE.-NEWPORT THEN AND NOW.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN now reappeared as a journalist. In 1728 another paper was established in Philadelphia-the second in that city. It was entitled the Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette, a title sufficiently long to satisfy any newspaper subscriber. It was published by Samuel Keimer. There is a story connected with this paper which had better be told in the words of one of the parties most interested. Speaking of his job printing-office, which he had just started, Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, gives these facts:

George Webb, who had found a female friend that lent him wherewith to purchase his time of Keimer, now came to offer himself as a journeyman to us. We could not then employ him; but I foolishly let him know as a secret, that I soon intended to begin a newspaper, and might then have work for him. My hopes of success, as I told him, were founded on this; that the then only newspaper, printed by Bradford, was a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was profitable to him; I therefore freely thought a good paper would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I requested Webb not to mention it; but he told it to Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, published proposals for one himself, on which Webb was to be employed. I was vexed at this; and, to counteract them, not being able to commence our paper, I wrote several amusing pieces for Bradford's paper, under the title of Busy Body, which Breintnal continued some months. By this means the attention of the public was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals which we burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. He began his paper, however; and, before carrying it on three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he offered it to me for a trifle; and I, having been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly; and it proved in a few days extremely profitable to me. * * * * * * Our first papers made quite a different appearance from any before in the province; a better type, and better printed; but some remarks of my writing, on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet, and the Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our subscribers.

Their example was followed by many, and our number went on growing continually. This was one of the first good effects of my having learned a little to scribble; another was, that the leading men, seeing a newspaper now in the hands of those who could handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and encourage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, and other public business. He had printed an address of the House to the Governor, in a coarse, blundering

manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and sent one to every member. They were sensible of the difference, it strengthened the hands of our friends in the House, and they voted us their printers for the year ensuing.

Among my friends in the House, I must not forget Mr. Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned from England, and had a seat in it. He interested himself for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many others afterwards, continuing his patronage till his death.

This was Franklin's first really independent attempt at the management of a newspaper on his own responsibility; and it is evident, from his opinion of the Mercury," a paltry thing," as he called it, that he felt equal to the enterprise. One of his first acts was to condense the title of his paper to that of the Pennsylvania Gazette, which he did on the 28th of September, 1729, and under that name it continued under his management till 1765. In spite of what he says in his autobiography, it has been asserted that Franklin wrote but little for the Gazette. He dabbled in politics and electricity, and set up printing-offices in other places, so that his time was pretty well occupied. Many of the articles published in the Gazette and attributed to Franklin were, in the opinion of Sparks, manifestly written by others. On one occasion, in 1734, Bradford, of the Mercury, rebuked the publication in the Gazette of some vulgar communications. Franklin stated that he inserted them because "by being too nice in the choice of little pieces sent him by correspondents, he had almost discouraged them from writing to him any more."

The Franklins appreciated, above all others, what a newspaper should be. "My friends," said Benjamin Franklin to a number of gentlemen who had constituted themselves his censors," any one who can subsist upon sawdust pudding and water, as I can, needs no man's patronage.' This was his code.

In 1748, David Hall, a Scotchman, became Franklin's partner. Hall carried on the establishment till his death in 1772. After Hall the concern passed into the hands of Andrew Brown, an Irishman, and was called the Philadelphia Gazette. The establishment was destroyed by fire when Mr. Brown owned it, and nearly his whole family perished in the flames. It was afterward continued by a son of Mr. Brown, who came out from Ireland for that purpose, in connection with Samuel Relf. This was in 1802. It ceased to exist for a time in 1804, but was re-established with the same title, and was, for some time, the oldest paper in the United States. Mr. Relf then purchased his partner's interest and conducted the paper alone. He was considered an able writer in his early journalistic days. The paper, under his management, was called Relf's Gazette. In 1824 or '25 Mr. Relf died. Stevenson Smith then became the publisher and editor, and the Gazette was the advocate of the political principles of the Jackson democracy. After this period the es

Benjamin Franklin's Gazette.

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tablishment was sold to Willis Gaylord Clark and James Russell. Mr. Clark had married a niece of Samuel Relf, and the Relf family were again, though indirectly, interested in the paper. It had now become the champion of Whig principles. It was an evening paper. Willis Gaylord Clark, the editor, was twin brother of Lewis Gaylord Clark, the wit, and for many years the genial editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine of New York. Willis was proprietor of the Gazette to the time of his death in 1841. On the 3d of November, 1845, it was merged with the North American. It had been, for some time, a branch, a sort of an evening edition to that journal. Thus closed the career of Franklin's Gazette, after an existence of one hundred and seventeen years.

The old paper-mill in which the paper used by Franklin was made was still in existence a few years ago. It was erected on Chester Creek, Delaware County, in 1713. The paper was made then by hand, as it was as late as 1853. There had been no change in one hundred and forty years in that little old mill, notwithstanding the great improvements and changes in paper-making since that period.

Newspapers enjoyed one or two privileges in the days of Franklin that would be seriously damaging to the revenue of the Post-office Department if tolerated now. In the Gazette of the 28th of January, 1735, Franklin said:

By the indulgence of the Honorable Colonel Spotswood, Post-Master-General, the printer hereof is allowed to send the Gazettes by the post, postage free, to all parts of the postroad, from Virginia to New England.

The five or six thousand newspapers of 1872, with their millions of circulation, with a privilege like the above, would utterly ruin the Post-office Department of to-day. Only a small part of the newspapers go through the mails now. They are sent as freight and by newsboys over the numerous railroads, and delivered at the different news centres by express lines and news agents here, there, and every where.

Maryland next fell into line with the old name on its title-page. The Maryland Gazette was the first paper published in that state. William Parks, one of the migratory printers of that century, issued the first number in Annapolis in 1727, and the paper was regularly published till 1736, when Parks went to Virginia to establish a newspaper there.

Another paper appeared in Boston on the 27th of September, 1731. It was styled the Weekly Rehearsal, and started by Jeremy Gridley," a young man of fine literary accomplishments," who became Attorney General of the Province, Member of the General Court, Colonel of Militia, President of the Marine Society, and

Grand Master of Freemasons. He died in 1767. The Rehearsal was printed by "J. Draper, for the Author," as editors were frequently called in those primitive days. It was filled with Addisonian essays, and exhibited large pretensions to literary taste and culture. In one article on the prevailing fashions in dress in 1732, it spoke of the crinolines of that period, which seemed to swell beyond the proportions of those of a hundred and thirty-five years later. The writer said:

I shall not busy myself with the ladies' shoes and stockings at all; but I can't so easily pass over the Hoop, when 'tis in my way, and therefore I must beg pardon of my fair readers, if I begin my attack here. 'Tis now some years since this remarkable fashion made a figure in the world, and from its first beginning divided the public opinion as to its convenience and beauty. For my part, I was always willing to indulge it, under some restrictions: that is to say, if 'tis not a rival to the dome of St. Paul's, to incumber the way, or a tub for the residence of a new Diogenes: if it does not eclipse too much beauty above, or discover too much below. In short, I am for living in peace, and I am afraid a fine lady, with too much liberty in this particular, would render my own imagination an enemy to my repose.

The Rehearsal, after two years of literary effort, became a record of passing events, and was owned and managed by Thomas Fleet. On the 21st of August, 1735, the name was changed to that of the Boston Evening Post. Fleet was the original publisher of the famous nursery rhymes of Mother Goose. The Post was conducted with energy, and became popular. If, as in the case of Franklin and Bradford, the government was at all censured, by implication even, the editor was prosecuted. On the 8th of March, 1741, the following proceedings took place in the Athens of America:

At a Council, held at the Council Chamber in Boston, upon Tuesday the 9th day of March, 1741.

Whereas there is published in the weekly paper called the Boston Evening Post of yesterday's date, a paragraph in the following words:

"Last Saturday Capt. Gibbs arrived here from Madeira, who informs us. that before he left that Island, Capt. Dandridge, in one of His Majesty's ships of forty guns, came in there from England, and gave an account, that the Parliament had called for all the Papers relating to the War, and 'twas expected the Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole would be taken into custody in a very few days. Capt. Dandridge was going upon the Virginia station to relieve the valiant and vigilant Knight there, almost worn out in the service of his country, and for which he has a chance to be rewarded with a Flag."

Which paragraph contains a scandalous and libelous Reflection upon his Majesty's Administration, and may tend very much to inflame the minds of his Majesty's subjects here and disaffect them to his Government;

Therefore, Ordered, That the Attorney-General do, as soon as may be, file an Information against Thomas Fleet, the Publisher of the said Paper, in his Majesty's Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Gaol Delivery, in order to his being prosecuted for his said offence, as Law and Justice requires. W. SHIRLEY.

Copy Examin'd, per 7. Willard, Sec.

This affair resulted in nothing because of the truth of the paragraph, but the animus dictating the proceedings was the same.

Fleet had his troubles with the clergy. He published John Wesley's sermon on Free Grace. For this he was denounced from the

pulpit by the Rev. John Morehead, who not only thundered against the unfortunate Fleet, but against the printing-press also. It appears that the editor of the Post was fully equal to any of these assaults upon him or upon the liberty of the Press. In his replies Fleet was good-natured, and therefore the more severe and the more effective.

On the death of Thomas Fleet the Evening Post was carried on by his sons Thomas and John, and they continued to publish it till 1775. It was stopped then in consequence of the discontent growing out of the attempted neutrality of the paper in the great agitation leading to the Revolution. Then, as now, the press were accused of being corrupted and improperly influenced by money. On the 10th of March, 1775, the Post said:

Whereas it hath been hinted in several letters lately received from England, that one or more printers of the public newspapers in the principal towns in America are hired, or rather bribed, (from a fund said to be established for that use) for the vile purpose of publishing pieces in their respective papers tending to favor despotism and the present arbitrary and tyrannical proceedings of the ministry relative to America; The publishers of the Boston Evening Post (whose papers have always been conducted with the utmost freedom and impartiality) do, for themselves, thus publicly declare, that no application has ever been made to them to prostitute their paper to such a base and mean purpose; and should they hereafter be applied to for that design, they shall despise the offer and those who make it, with the greatest contempt; not but that their paper shall, as usual, be open for the insertion of all pieces that shall tend to amuse or instruct, or to the promoting of useful knowledge and the general good of mankind, as they themselves (who are the sole directors and proprietors thereof) shall think prudent, profitable, or entertaining to their numerous readers.

The battles of Concord and Lexington were fought on the 19th of April, 1775. Without giving any of the particulars of that fight, the paper appeared on the 24th of April for the last time. These scenes of action were only two or three hours' drive from the printing-office of the Post! The British troops had returned to their barracks in Boston on the 20th of that month.

John Peter Zenger, with the New York Weekly Journal, next appeared before the public. The first number of that paper was issued on the 5th of November, 1733. It was established in opposition to Bradford's Gazette for a political purpose, and published by Zenger, who was a good printer, the importer of the first piano-forte in America, something of a scholar, and a famous editor in his day. He came from Germany when he was thirteen years of age, and was an apprentice of Bradford's. For three years the Journal was in a state of bitter war with the administration of Governor William Cosby, and his successor, Lieutenant Governor George Clarke. Zenger, as a politician, was in the interest of Rip Van Dam, a wealthy merchant of New York, and in virtue of his office as President of the Council, acting Governor of the Province till the arrival of Cos

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