"
In 1697 the Parliament set about the task of re trieving the public credit, and to supply the want of
money the currency of exchequer bills.
In 1697 the Parliament set about the task of re trieving the public credit, and to supply the want of
money the currency of exchequer bills.
Hunt - Fourth Estate - History of Newspapers and Liberty of Press - v1
' After King James the Second came to the crown, Cave was drawn over so far by the Roman Catholic party, for bread and money sake, and nothing else, to write on their behalf, and to vindicate their proceedings against the Church of England, in his Mercuries ; which weekly came out, entitled ' Public Occurrences truly stated.
' The first of which came out 21st February, 1687, and were by him continued to the time of his death, which happened 8th August,
1688, aged 42 ; he was buried in the yard belonging to the Blackfriars' Church in London. "
L'Estrange.
WHITEHALL THE FOUNTAIN-HEAD FOR NEWS. 153
was first used; the arose soon afterwards.
antagonistic appellation, Whig,
The people, whilst deprived of free Newspapers, had a keen appetite for News, and Macaulay in his History* has given us a graphic sketch of the avidity with which the neighbourhood of the Court was sought
by those who thirsted for information of current events. " Whitehall," he says, " naturally became the chief staple of News. Whenever there was a rumour that anything important had happened, or was about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from the fountain-head. The galleries presented the appearance of a modern club-room at an anxious time. They were full of people inquiring whether the Dutch mail was in ; what tidings the express from France had brought; whether John Sobieskyhad beaten the Turks; whether the Doge of Genoa was really at Paris. These were matters about which it was safe to talk
aloud; but there were subjects concerning which infor mation was asked and given in whispers : Had Halifax got the better of Rochester ; was there to be a Parlia ment; was the Duke of York really going to Scotland ; had Monmouth really been summoned from the Hague. Men tried to read the countenance of every minister as he went through the throng to and from the Royal closet. All sorts of auguries were drawn from the tone in which His Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or from the laugh with which His Majesty honoured a jest of the Lord Privy Seal ; and, in a few hours, the hopes and fears inspired by such slight indications had spread to
all the coffee-houses from St. James's to the Tower. " * History of England, Vol. p. 365.
I. ,
154
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
The same admirable pen gives us a picture of the state of the press in the later days of the feeble and profligate Charles. "In 1685," says Macaulay, "no thing like the daily Paper of our time existed, or could exist. Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Freedom too was wanting, a want as fatal as that of either capital or skill. The press was not indeed at that moment under a general censorship. The licensing act, which had been passed
Any
soon after the Restoration, had expired in 1679.
person might therefore print, at his own risk, a history, a sermon, or a poem, without the previous approbation of any public officer; but the judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty did not extend to Gazettes ; and that, by the common law of England, no man not authorized by the Crown had a right to publish political News. * While the Whig party was still formidable, the Goverment thought it expedient occa sionally to connive at the violation of this rule. Dur ing the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, many Newspapers were suffered to appear ; the Protestant Intelligencer, the Current Intelligence, the Domestic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mercury. None of these was published oftener than twice a week.
None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quan tity of matter which one of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in two numbers of the Times. After the defeat of the Whigs, it was no longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the use of that which all his judges had pronounced to be his undoubted prerogative. At the close of his reign,
* London Gazette, May 5th and 17th, 1680.
THE LONDON GAZETTE.
15,1
no Newspaper was suffered without his allowance; and his allowance was given exclusively to the London Gazette. The London Gazette came out only on Mondays and Thursdays. The contents generally were a Royal proclamation ; two or three Tory addresses ; notices of two or three promotions, an account of a skirmish between the Imperial troops and the Janissaries on the Danube ; a description of a highwayman ; an announcement of a grand cockfight between two persons of honour; and an advertisement offering a reward for a strayed dog. The whole made up two pages of moderate size. Whatever was commu nicated respecting matters of the highest moment was communicated in the most meagre and formal style. Sometimes, indeed, when the Government was disposed to gratify the public curiosity respecting an important transaction, a broadside was put forth giving fuller details than could be found in the Gazette ; but neither the Gazette, nor any supplementary broadside printed by authority, ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit the purposes of the Court to publish. The most important Parliamentary debates, the most important State trials recorded in our history, were passed over in profound silence. * In the Capital, the coffee-houses supplied in some measure the place of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked, as the Athe nians of oldflocked to the market-place, to hear whether there was any News. There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been treated the day before in
* For example, there is not a word in the Gazette about the im portant Parliamentary proceedings of November, 1685, or about the trial and acquittal of the seven bishops. —Macaulay.
156 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
Westminster Hall ; what horrible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the torturing the Covenanters ; how grossly the Navy Board had cheated the Crown in the victualling of the fleet; and what grave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought against the Treasury, in the matter of the hearth money. But people who lived at a distance from the great theatre of political contention could be kept regularly informed of what
*
It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then no Provincial Newspapers. Indeed, except in the Capital, and at two Universities, there was scarcely a printer in the Kingdom. The only press in England, north of Trent, appears to have been at York. " *
Macaulay winds up with a bitter, and perhaps deserved, denunciation of L'Estrange, whose intolerant Toryism, pursued its victims, even beyond the grave, with an inveteracy equal to that of Anthony Wood.
James the Second, like his brother, had a hatred of free Newspapers, and one of the laws made during his short reign was directed against the press. When the intelligence reached him that the Duke of Mon mouth had landed in the west—Argyle being in arms in the north—the Parliament was asked for money to crush the armed rebellion, and for a revival of the statute of 13th and 14th Charles the Second, that the rebellion in type might also be suppressed. The obedient Houses granted both demands, and the tram-
* Life of Thomas Gent. A complete list of all printing-houses in 1724, will be found in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. There had then been a great increase within a few years in the number of presses, and yet there were thirty-four counties in which there was no printer, one of those counties being Lancashire. —Macaulay.
was passing there only by means of News-letters.
**
FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON OPINION. 157
mels of printing were strengthened, whilst taxes were spent upon an armed force to keep James upon the throne. The imposition of this additional fetter on free expression calls from the statesman and historian Fox, the remark, that " this circumstance, important as it is, does not seem to have excited much attention at the time, which, considering the general principles then in fashion is not surprising. That it should have been scarcely noticed by any writer," continues he, " is more wonderful. It is time, however, that the terror inspired by the late prosecutions for libels, and violent conduct of the courts upon such occasions, rendered a formal destruction of the liberty of the press a matter of less importance. So little does the magis tracy, when it is inclined to act tyrannically, stand in need of tyrannical laws to effect its purpose. The bare silence and acquiescence of the legislature is in such
a case fully sufficient to annihilate, practically speak
ing, every right and liberty of the subject. "*
The Courts of Law, as well as the Parliament
House, interfered with the press. Soon after the execution of the supposed murderer of Sir Edmunbury Godfrey, there appeared in a Paper of the period a letter criticising the evidence adduced before the coroner's jury, and contending that the deceased knight had destroyed himself, and had not fallen by the hands of others. This letter was published in a journal called The Loyal Protestant Intelligence, the owner of which, one Nathaniel Thompson, was, it appears, known as the " Loyal Protestant Printer. "
Some of the witnesses in the case of Edmundbury * Fox's History of James the Second.
1-58 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
felt aggrieved at these comments in the Newspaper, and a prosecution was instituted against Thompson the printer, and the authors of the critique, William Pain and John Farwell. The trial took place at Guildhall, and a verdict of guilty having been returned, Mr. Justice Jones sentenced Thompson and Farwell to the pillory and to pay a fine of £100, whilst Pain escaped with a fine only. This judgment was carried out. On the 5th of July, 1682, Thompson and Farwell stood in the pillory in the Old Palace Yard at West minster, with this writing over their heads, "For libelling the justice of the nation, by making the world believe that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey murdered himself. "* Had Charles Dickens written in such times, he would inevitably have been made a martyr, had he ventured to give such admirable and useful
descriptions as the one in Pickwick, where the tyran nical rascalities of Mr. Fang are exposed.
The slavery of the press, whilst James the Second held power in England, was further manifested in the case of the pious and exemplary Richard Baxter, who having written a Paraphrase on the New Testament, certain passages were culled from (it said by
and declared to be an attack on the
L'Estrange,)
bishops. The infamous Jeffreys sat as judge in the case, and his coarse brutality towards the pious divine has formed subject of remark to every writer who has referred to the trial. Baxter was condemned, and fined £500, and ordered to lie in prison till the money was paid. A still more cruel case was that of the Eev. Samuel Johnson, who, publishing an address to
State Trials, Vol. VIII. , p. 1389.
*
a
it, is
A CLERGYMAN PILLORIED AND FLOGGED. 159
the Protestants of the army, was arrested and tried at the King's Bench Bar at Westminster, 21st of June, 1686, on a charge of seditious and scandalous libel against the Government. The address was far less severe than most of the leading articles of a modern
morning Paper, yet Johnson was ordered to be de graded from the Church, to be pilloried, and to be flogged from Newgate to Tyburn. This abominable sentence was executed. The ceremony of degradation was performed by three supple and obedient church men, Dr. Crew, Bishop of Durham, Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Kochester, and Dr. White, Bishop of Peterborough. These dignitaries had the prisoner taken to the Chap
ter House of St. Pauls, where they put a square cap upon his head, and then took it off; they then pulled off his gown and girdle, and put a Bible into his hands, "which he not parting with readily, they took from him by force. "* From the cathedral Johnson
was taken to Newgate, where the common hangman awaited him, and he was flogged from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, " which he endured with as firm a courage and as Christian behaviour as ever was discovered on any such occasion ; though, at the same time, he had
a quick sense of every stripe which was given him, with a whip of nine cords, knotted, to the number of
He was likewise put thrice into the pillory, and mulcted of 500 marks. When James's love of Popery had lost him the throne, the Parliament was called upon to take Johnson's case into consideration; and, so great was their sense of the injustice done him, that they declared the judgment to have been illegal
* State Trials, Vol. II. , p. 1352. f State Trials, Vol. II. , p- 1351.
317. "t
100 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
and cruel, and the ecclesiastical proceedings against him to be null and void. They also solicited the new King to grant him some compensation, —which was done.
These attempts for the suppression of printed thought by James had, however, again the effect which was produced by similar tyranny in the times of his
father, Charles the First. The printers of London dared not multiply the opinions of those who differed from the Crown ; but the printers of Holland had no such scruples, and again the shores of England were invaded by pamphlets produced at the Hague. Nor censors, nor custom-houses could stay the force of this inroad. The people would have Protestant books and News. The King issued two proclamations in support of his act of Parliament. These manifestoes were declared to be for " restraining the spreading of false News. " But in vain. The printed paper still poured in from Holland, and a King and Queen soon followed from the same shores to occupy the throne
from which the press-coercing James was compelled to flee.
CHAPTER V.
A CENTURY OF NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLI GENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
" For almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the unshackled and independent energies of the press. — Hallam's C'awititutional History.
The Orange Newspapers. —The Career of Tutchin. — Judge Jeffreys. — Defoe. — The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. — Bolingbroke. —Swift. —Addison. —The first Stamp Act and its effects. —Steele expelled the House of Commons. —Fielding. —Foote. —Burke. —Dr. Johnson. —Smollet. —Wilkes. — Churchill. —Junius. —Chatterton. — The House of Commons and the Printers.
THE press was emancipated from the censorship soon after the Revolution, and the Government
(as Macaulay says) immediately fell under the censor ship of the press. Both Whigs and Tories looked to the Papers of the time to gain support for their different opinions, and the people were thus again openly and avowedly appealed to for a judgment on political questions. The Government set up the Orange Intel ligencer for the promulgation and support of their policy, whilst the opposition were equally provided with journals in which the character and proceedings of the authorities were unscrupulously criticised. All
this was favourable to the cause of rational liberty; since, in the contest of argument, there was little fear
but truth would ultimately gain an advantage over
error. The Newspapers too became a sort of safety-
valve by which the effervescing elements of society VOL. I. L
162 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
(so to speak) might find at least a partial means for venting sentiments, which when restrained become dangerous. The press grew rapidly with its increased freedom, and became active, unscrupulous, and influ ential. Speaking of this period, Hallam says : —" vigilance, and indeed for almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the un shackled and independent energies of the press. " In the reign of William the Third, and through the influence of the popular principle in our constitution, this finally became free. The licensing act, suffered to expire in 1679, was revived in 1685 for seven
In 1692, it was continued till the end of the session of 1693. Several attempts were afterwards made to renew its operation, which the less courtly Whigs combined with the Tories and Jacobites to defeat. *
Both parties indeed employed the press with great diligence in this reign ; but while one degenerated into malignant calumny and misrepresentation, the signal victory of liberal principles is manifestly due to the boldness and eloquence with which they were promul gated. Even during the (short) existence of a cen sorship, a host of unlicensed publications, by the negligence or connivance of the officers employed to seize them, bore witness to the inefficacy of its restric tions. The bitterest invectives of Jacobitism were
* Commons' Journals, 9th January, and 11th February, 1694-5. A bill to the same effect, sent down from the Lords, was thrown out, 17th April, 1695. Another bill was rejected on the second reading in 1697, 3rd April.
For
years.
mount's publication. 163
circulated in the first four years after the Revolution. * Politicians were severely criticised by their opponents, but, since both sides had to pass the same ordeal, the ultimate result was a gradual diminution of partizan violence and a growing moderation, both in the exercise of power and in the acrimony of opposition. " States men had a scrutiny to endure which was becoming day by day more severe. The extreme violence of opinions abated. The Whigs learned moderation in office ; the Tories learned the principles of liberty in opposition. The parties almost constantly approxi mated, often met, and sometimes crossed each other. There were occasional bursts of violence ; but, from the time of the Revolution, those bursts were constantly becoming less and less terrible. "t
The press, though enjoying more liberty, was still occasionally brought in contact with the law when the
Government chose to regard its productions as danger ous. Thus, before the expiration of the licensing act, a publication, entitled " King William and Queen Mary Conquerors," said to have been written by C. Blount, was ordered (1693), by the two Houses of Parliament, to be burned by the common hangman, whilst the licenser, Mr. Bohun, was removed from his office for allowing it to be printed. ! In 1744 Sir John Knight's speech in Parliament against the bill for naturalizing Protestant foreigners having been
* Somer's Tracts passim. John Dunton the bookseller, in the History of his Life and Errors, hints that unlicensed books could be published by a douceur to Robert Stephens, the messenger of the press, whose business it was to inform against them. —Note to Hallam.
t Macaulay's Essays, Vol. p. 204. Tindal's Rapin, Book XXV.
L 2
X
I. ,
in i THE FOURTH ESTATE.
printed and circulated by the Tory party, it was ordered by the House, that the speech contained false and scandalous and seditious expressions and reflec tions, and that it be burnt by the hangman. The
attended in Palace Yard to see this order executed. At the end of the same year,* a complaint was made to the House of Commons that a
News-writer, named Dyer, had presumed to take notice of their proceedings in one of his productions, and an order was issued that this offender against the privileges of Parliament, should be summoned by the Serjeant- at-Arms, to attend at the sitting of the House ; a command which he obeyed, and after an examination he acknowledged his offence, and was ordered to kneel at the bar, whilst the Speaker reprimanded him "for
his great presumption. " The Commons afterwards came to a resolution " that no News-letter writers do, in their letters or other papers that they disperse, presume to intermeddle with the debates, or any other proceedings of this House. "t Here was a direct avowal of a determination to keep all their proceedings out of print. The Parliament objected, in fact, to the scrutiny of the people ; but some of their debates were printed, nevertheless, from time to time. Dyer appears not to have been altogether intimidated by the Speaker's censure, for we find on record a story which shows that he still continued to issue his News-letters, and
to mention in them the names of peers of Parliament. " One Dyer," says Kennet, "was justly reprimanded by
the Speaker for presuming to represent the proceed ings of the House. But such a gentle rebuke could
* Dec. 21, 1694. t Pari. Hist, Vol. V. , p. 363.
Serjeant-at-Arms
THE FLYING POST. 165
not reform a fellow who wrote for two very necessitous causes, for the Jacobite party and for bread. But the Lord Mohun rebuked him more effectually some time after; for finding him at one of his factious coffee houses, and showing him a letter, wherein his lordship was named, Dyer owned not knowing my lord; who immediately laid on him with cudgel he had
provided for that purpose, and made him swear to have no more to say of the Lord Mohun.
"
In 1697 the Parliament set about the task of re trieving the public credit, and to supply the want of
money the currency of exchequer bills. The News paper known as the Flying Post* thus referred to the
proceedings: — "We hear that when the exchequer notes are given out upon the capilation fund, who soever shall desire specie on them, will have at 5j per cent, of the society of gentlemen that have sub scribed to advance some hundred thousands of pounds, "t The House voted this passage to be malicious insinuation, in order to destroy the credit and currency of the exchequer bills. They ordered the printer, John Salisbury, to be sent for in custody and they
gave leave to bring in bill to prevent the writing, printing, or publishing any News without license. But when such bill was presented by Mr Pulteney
was thrown out before the second reading. " Here was the attempt to revive the licensing act which Hallam refers to. It was, as we have seen, defeated in an early stage of its progress, and this result may be partially attributed to the circulation of tract,! written
Published April 1697. Pari. Hist. , Vol. V. , p. 1164. State Tracts, William III. , Vol. II. , p. 614.
t
1,
by
t
it,
*
it
a
a
a
;
a
it
a
16C THE FOURTH ESTATE.
like Milton's, to urge the Parliament to leave the press unshackled. The question was well put before the Legislature in this pamphlet, and its author had the satisfaction to find that printing was to remain for a time without any additional trammels. Meantime Newspapers had gone on increasing. From the day of the first appearance of the Public Intelligencer in 1661 till 1688, there had appeared altogether about seventy different Journals. Some of these lived but a
few numbers, others were more permanent ; whilst one of them, the London Gazette, remains still in existence. Within the four years next after 1688, no less than twenty-six Papers were added to the list. The word Reform now found its way into the heading of a Paper conducted by Dr. J. Wellwood, whose lucubrations
the Mercurius Reformatus. Other novelties also appeared; and the competition, begotten of in creased supply, had the effect of tasking the inventive faculties of projectors. Thus the Flying Post, in 1695, suggests, " that if any gentleman has a mind to oblige his country friend or correspondent with this account of public affairs, he can have it for twopence of J. Salisbury, at the Rising Sun in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which being blank, he may thereon
write his own affairs, or the material News of the day. " Here we see an indication that the News-letter* was not forgotten; and this is still further shown in the case of another Journal published by Ichabod Dawks
* The last two volumes of the Stepney Papers in the British Museum contain — " Letter of News transmitted to Mr. Stepney from the Secretary of State's office by Mr Ellis, by Mr Yard, and Mr Warre," Vol 21 ; " Papers of News transmitted to Mr. Stepney by Mr Cardonnel, (Secretary to the Duke of Marlborough,) during the campaigns of
graced
QUEEN ANNE. 167
in 1696, which was printed in script, and on letter-
paper to imitate an ordinary handwriting, a portion being left blank to be filled up by the purchaser before
he despatched it by post. The increase of such prints was encouraged by the increased facilities for their circulation. The Post Office, which had been esta blished by Charles the First, was interrupted by the Civil Wars only to be put on a more secure footing when those wars were at an end ; and, when William
and Mary occupied the throne, the postal service was still further extended, and many of the Journals were
published on the days most convenient for despatch through its medium.
Anne ascended the throne on the 8th of March, 1 702, and her reign is memorable in the annals of the press. It was marked by a law giving copyright to authors, by the establishment of the first daily Newspaper, by the appearance of great names in the list of writers for the public prints, and by the impo
sition of a stamp upon Newspapers, and a duty on advertisements.
In May 1702 the Parliament took cognizance of several publications which were alleged to contain libellous and dangerous matter. Amongst other offenders was Dr. Drake, who escaped with a censure ; whilst another writer saw his production burnt by the hangman ; and a third, the Rev. Dr. Bincke, was reported to the bishop of his diocese as a preacher and
1702—1706, and from Sir Lambert Blackwell, Mr. Chetwynd, and Mr. Broughton, English ministers resident in Italy during the same period. " These letters are respectively entitled " Whitehall News, " Edinburgh News," " Camp News," " Italian News. " &c.
Queen
1G8 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
publisher of scandalous and offensive remarks. All the writings thus denounced had a character regarded
then as politically dangerous.
At the opening of the year 1 704, the editor of the
Paper called the Observator fell under the displeasure of the Parliament, in consequence of some remarks he had made on occasional conformity. A resolution was adopted, " That the Observator, from the 8th to the 11th of December, 1703, contains matters scandal ous and malicious, reflecting on the proceedings of the House, tending to the promotion of sedition in the kingdom; and that Tutchin the author, How the
printer, and Bragg the publisher of that Paper, should be taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-Arms. " Tutchin set the House at defiance, absconded, " went on in his way of writing," and made some further sharp remarks upon a speech of a member of Parliament, Sir John Packington. Upon this the Commons were
again appealed to, and they adopted an address to the Queen, praying that a proclamation be issued for appre hending the contumacious writer, printer, and pub lisher, and offering a reward to any person who should betray their hiding-place.
The writer who thus braved the wrath of the Legis lature had suffered much, and unjustly, at the hands of his political opponents; and, as in the case of Lilburn, a youth of suffering and wrong would seem to have prepared Tutchin for a manhood of determined action against those whom he regarded as his political foes. In the chronicles* of that assize in which the path of
* The Western Martyrologj', or The Bloody Assizes, quoted in State Trials, Vol. XIV. , p. 1195.
THE TRIAL OF TUTCHIN. 169
" Mr. John Tutchin, a young gentleman of Hampshire, who, having had the misfortune, with many others of his acquaintance, to be in the interest of the Duke of Monmouth, was taken a prisoner by the county guard. " When seized he concealed his real name, and was committed to Dorchester gaol as Thomas Pitts, and there being no evidence against him he was acquitted. Before Tutchin could leave the prison, Jeffreys learned who he really was, and determined to be revenged for the deception that had been practised. He set the
to endeavour to extort a confession from the acquitted prisoner, but in vain ; and Tutchin was once again brought into court, when Jeffreys, " not caring to indict him again for rebellion, pretended that the crime of changing his name deserved a severe sen tence," and sentenced him to remain in prison for seven years ; and further ordered, that once every year he should be whipped through all the market towns of Dorsetshire; that he should pay a fine of 100 marks to the King, and find security for his good behaviour during life.
"It was observable," continues the historian of the trial, "when this sentence was passed upon Tutchin, that the ladies in the court, of whom there were a great many,all burst out a-crying, but Jeffreys turn ing towards them, said, 'Ladies, if you did but know what a villain this is, as well as I do, you would say this sentence is not half bad enough for him. ' "
Upon passing the sentence, the Clerk of the Ar raigns stood up and said, " My Lord, there are a great
Jeffreys was marked by a string of gibbets, and the victims were counted by hundreds, we find notice of
gaoler
170 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
many market towns in this county ; the sentence reaches to a whipping about once a fortnight, and he is a very
young man. " " "Aye," replied Jeffreys,
he isayoungman. buthe is an old rogue, and all the interest in England shall not
reverse the sentence I have passed upon him. "
" Certainly," says the reporter of this specimen of
judicial conduct during the well-named bloody assize, " no devil incarnate could rage, no Billingsgate woman could scold worse than this judge did at this young gentleman whilst he was at the bar. He called him a thousand rogues and villains, told him he was a rebel from Adam, that never any of his family had the least loyalty ; and, continued he, 'I understand you are a wit and a poet ; pray, sir, let you and I cap verses. " Tut- chin smiled, and replied, he knew on what ground and when he was over-matched. " Lying under the barbarous sentence, his friends advised Tutchin to
sue for a pardon, but he refused to do so, and with his own hand drew up a petition to the King, who was then at Winchester. It was duly presented, and the Court and the King, it was said, esteemed it a barbarous sentence, but all the answer that could be got was from Lord Sunderland, that Mr Tutchin must wait with patience. The next paragraphs of the nar rative of this interesting case throw a curious light
upon the customs and morality of times when this News-writer lived :—
Mr. Tutchin hereupon endeavoured to get a pardon from the people who had grants of lives, many of them 500, some 1000, more or less, according as they had interest in the King ; but Jeffreys would not so much as hear his name mentioned, and
the sentence was ordered to be executed.
TUTCHIN IN GAOL. 171
Four or five days before the execution of the sentence, a brother-in-law of Mr. Tutchin, a physician, persuaded him to take a dose of physic to make himself sick, by which means the execution might be put off, and perhaps in that time some means might be found for his enlargement : He took the dose, and in three or four days the small-pox came out very thick upon him, no man ever had them to a higher degree ; and in that condition he lay by himself in prison, nobody to look after him but his fellow-prisoners, for there being a pestilential dis temper in the prison, of which some scores died every week, the magistrates of the town would not suffer any communication with the prisoners.
Mr. Tutchin lying in this miserable condition, and his life being despaired of, his friends worked the easier with Jeffreys to get the sentence reversed, which some people would have believed a sign of repentance in Jeffreys, had he not taken the money himself. After Mrs. Tutchin had done this last kind office for her son, she sickened of the small pox and died, his brother and two sisters fell sick of the same distemper ; so that when Mr. Tutchin had friends allowed to come to him, like Job's com forters, they brought him the tidings that his mother was dead, and all the relations he had in the world were a-dying, and that they had contracted for a pardon for more money than he was worth, for a life which he never valued. So he was popt into a pardon amongst others ; for it was usual at that time for one courtier to get a pardon of the King for half a score, and then, by the assistance of Jeffreys, to augment the sum to four score or an hundred, and so this unfortunate gentleman fortu nately got out of his broil.
But we must not leave Mr. Tutchin here, though what after wards we shall say of him, does not relate to what was trans acted in the west, yet it may not be amiss to show how the providence of God does often change the face of things, and alter the circumstances and conditions of men, so that those who boast of their power, and exercise their authority with the greatest severity, many times become the scorn and contempt of those they have triumphed over. Who could have thought, when Jeffreys past that sentence on Mr. Tutchin in the west,
172 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
that ever Mr. Tutchin should see that wicked judge a prisoner, apprehended by the injured people, and committed by a tool of his own party ? Yet it so happened.
For Jeffreys, endeavouring to make his escape beyond sea in a sailor's habit, was discovered by one to whom he had done some acts of injustice, and was taken in Anchor-and-Hope Alley, in Wapping, and by the mob carried before the instrument of Popery, Sir J C , then Lord Mayor of the city of London, and by him committed to the Tower.
Mr. Tutchin, hearing of this, went to give his Lordship a visit : who did not know Mr. Tutchin at first, he being much altered with the small pox ; but Jeffreys, understanding who he was, told him he was glad to see him ; Mr. Tutchin answered he was glad to see him in that place. Jeffreys returned, that time and place happened to all men, and that when a man was born, he knew not what death he should die, nor what his cir cumstances should be in this life, and abundance of such cant ; but added, that he had served his master very faithfully, according to his conscience. Mr. Tutchin asked him, where his conscience was when he passed that sentence on him in the west ? Jeffreys said, you were a young man, and an enemy to the Government, and might live to do abundance of mischief; and it was part of my instructions to spare no man of courage, parts, or estate; but withal added, that his instructions were much more severe than the execution of them, and that at his return he was snubbed at Court for being too merciful. So, after he had treated Mr. Tutchin with a glass of wine, Mr. Tutchin went away.
Soon after this, Jeffreys had a barrel of oysters sent him to the Tower, which he caused to be opened, saying, he thanked God he had some friends left. But when the oysters were tumbled out on the table, a halter came out with them, which made him change his countenance, and so palled his stomach, that he could eat none of them. This was confidently reported to be done by Mr. Tutchin : but I having heard him protest that he was not in the least concerned therein, we must believe it to be done by another hand.
tcjtchin's
At the end of the year 1704, Tutchin was tried at the Guildhall, London, for a libel contained in his Paper, the Observator, when the Attorney General, Sir E. Northey, in his address for the prosecution, said the Crown laid the information against Mr. Tutchin " for a few of his observations of the many he hath writ. It is a great while that he has done it," urged this legal functionary, " and it has been the great in dulgence of the Government that he has not been prosecuted before. He has been taken notice of by the House of Commons, and been before the Secretary
of State, where he has been admonished to take care of what he should write ; but he would not take warn
The trial proceeded, the printer of the Paper, John How, giving evidence against Tutchin. This witness said that the Observator was usually published weekly, but sometimes oftener, the first number being issued in April, 1702; that about 266 numbers had been published ; and that Tutchin was the writer of
them all. The counsel for the accused took some legal objections to the case for the prosecution, and though
the jury found a partial verdict against him, the News- writer escaped from the clutches of the law in this instance, and continued to labour as a journalist. Tutchin was abused by Swift as the writer of the Ob servator — a sufficient proof that the Paper did good service to the party it supported ; but finding that his efforts could not be stayed by written arguments, his enemies availed themselves of brute force. One night the unfortunate News-writer was waylaid in the night,
and beaten so cruelly that he died of the wounds thus inflicted.
observator. 173
ing. "
17 1 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
One of the libels (and they all now seem very harm less) charged against Tutchin, referred to the case of
thought —
The author of Robinson Crusoe was a distinguished member of the corps of early political writers of this
another sufferer for freedom of printed Daniel Defoe.
period.
In 1700 he published his satire The True-
Born Englishman, and two years afterwards paid the
penalty of open-speaking, by being sentenced to the
pillory for publishing a pamphlet entitled A Short
Way with the Dissenters. Fines and imprisonment
could not, however, destroy his energies. In Newgate
he matured his plans for further literary labours ; he
made the pillory the subject of an ode; and, whilst
yet in gaol, started his Review, which he kept up for
nine years.
The House of Commons from time to time con tinued to use its power against any person who printed anything regarded as injurious to its dignity. In 1700 the Sergeant-at-Arms apprehended David Edwards, who had printed The Memorial of the Church of England which the Queen had complained of, but the House was unable to discover the writer of the offen sive publication. In the following year the House expelled Mr. Asgill, one of their own members, because
he had written a treatise some passages of which they
regarded as highly profane, and reflecting on the Chris tian religion. This work they ordered to be burnt by the hangman. In 1709 Dr. Sacheveral's publica tions were condemned by Parliament, and ordered to be burnt.
The many circumstances, however, which had sti-
THE FIRST DAILY PAPER.
175
mulated the production of Journals had not, up to this period, induced the appearance of a daily Paper. That was a step in advance reserved for the reign when the victories of Marlborough and Rooke, the
political contests of Godolphin and Bolingbroke, and the writ
ings of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Steele, and Swift created a mental activity in the nation which could not wait from week to week for its News. Hence the appearance of a morning Paper in 1709, under the title of the Daily Courant. When this was offered to the English people there were eighteen other Papers published in London, and among their titles we find a British Apollo, a Postman, an Evening Post, a General Postcript, and a City Intelligencer. The editor of the Evening Post of September 6, 1709, reminds the public that " there must be three or four pounds a-year paid for written News," &c. —that is to say, for the News-letters which thus seem to have been still competing with public prints—whilst the Evening Post might be had for a much more moderate sum.
Not only in frequency of appearance did the Newspapers of Queen Anne's day surpass their prede cessors : they began to assume a loftier political position, and to take on a better outward shape— though still poor enough in this respect. The very earliest Newspapers only communicated intelligence without giving comment ; subsequently we find Papers giving political discussions without News. In the publications subsequent to 1700 we find these two elements of a journal more frequently united. Mr. Hallam is inclined to regard this as the period when what he terms " regular Newspapers" began to obtain
176 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
political importance in our constitutional system. He says, " The publication of regular Newspapers partly designed for the communication of intelligence, partly for the discussion of political topics, may be referred upon the whole to the reign of Anne, when they ob tained great circulation, and became the accredited organs of different factions. "*
The year that produced the first daily Newspaper in England, gave birth also to the first of a group of publications which had many of the characteristic features of Journals, and were at the time regarded as such, though they cannot now be called Newspapers. They appeared at stated intervals, occasionally gave intelligence of passing events, and comments on pass ing events, contained advertisements, and, when the stamp was imposed on Newspapers, suffered the in fliction of that impost equally with their more political
rivals. They were — The Tatler, started in 1709 ; the Spectator, in 1711; the Guardian, and the Englishman, in 1713 ; and the Freeholder, in 1715. These, though now seen in compact volumes, were originally issued in separate sheets, as their numbering indicates ; and they contained, in addition to the elegantly-written papers now preserved, various items of News and advertisements, as the originals in the British Museum
Library bear witness. A list of noble names is sug gested by the mention of these works. Addison and Steele, Swift and Bolingbroke, come at once into the arena, as mental combatants in the written political strife of the period. Swift, when he took side with the Tories, used his power of language and ready pen
* Hallam's Constitutional History.
addison's quidnunc. 177
in the paper started by that party under the title of the Examiner ;* Bolingbroke wrote in the same jour nal; whilst the more elegant and familiar Addison, and the ready and versatile Steele, devoted their efforts to the service of the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian. The Freeholder, which had an almost exclusively political object, was the sole production of Addison, who sought by its influence to aid the Govern ment, and to neutralize some of the injury inflicted on his party by the Examiner of his political antagonists.
Some pleasant Newspaper sketches are to be found scattered through the pages of these publications.
The Spectator)- gives us a portrait of the quidnunc of that day, drawn by himself: —
I wonder that, in the present situation of affairs, you can take pleasure in writing anything but News ; for, in a word, who minds anything else ? the pleasure of increasing in knowledge, and learning something new every hour of life, is the noblest entertainment of a rational creature. I have a very good ear for a secret, and am naturally of a communicative temper ; by which means I am capable of doing you great services in this
way. In order to make myself useful, I am early in the anti- chamber, where I thrust my head into the thick of the press, and catch the News at the opening of the door, while it is warm. Sometimes I stand by the beef-eaters, and take the buzz as it passes by me. At other times I lay my ear close to the wall, and suck in many a valuable whisper, as it runs in a straight line from corner to corner. When I am weary with
* Hallam says, " Bolingbroke' s letter to the Examiner, in 1710, excited so much attention, that it was answered by Lord Cowper, then Chancellor, in a letter to the Tatler. "— Somer's Tracts, Vol. XIII. ,
p. 75. Where Sir Walter Scott justly observes, that the fact of two such statesmen becoming the correspondents of periodical publications shows the influence they must have acquired over the public mind.
t No. 625, for Friday, Nov. 26, 1714.
VOL. I. M
178 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
standing, I repair to one of the neighbouring coffee-houses, where I sit sometimes for a whole day, and have the News as as it comes from Court fresh and fresh. In short, Sir, I spare no pains to know how the the world goes. A piece of News loses its flavour when it hath been an hour in the air. I love, if 1 may so speak, to have it fresh from the tree ; and to convey it to my friends before it is faded. Accordingly my expenses in coach-hire make no small article : which you may believe, when I assure you, that I post away from coffee-house to coffee house, and forestall the Evening Post by two hours. There is a certain gentleman, who hath given me the slip twice or thrice, and hath been beforehand with me at Child's. But I have
played him a trick. I have purchased a pair of the best coach- horses I could buy for money, and now let him outstrip me if he can. Once more, Mr. Spectator, let me advise you to deal in News. You may depend upon my assistance. But I must break off abruptly, for I have twenty letters to write.
Addison dilates upon the strong appetite of his cotemporaries, in 1 7 1 2, for Newspapers. " There is no humour in my countrymen," he says, " which I am more inclined to wonder at than their general thirst after News. There are about half-a-dozen ingenious men,
who live very plentifully upon this curiosity of their fellow-subjects. They all of them receive the same ad vices from abroad, and very often in the same words ; but their way of cooking it is so very different, that there is no citizen, who has an eye to the public good, that can leave the coffee-house with peace of mind be
fore he has given every one of them a reading. These several dishes of News are so very agreeable to the palate of my countrymen, that they are not only pleased with them when they are served up hot, but when they are again set cold before them, by those penetrating politicians, who oblige the public with their reflections
THE SPECTATOR'S COMIC NEWSPAPER. 179
and observations upon every piece of intelligence that is sent us from abroad. The text is given us by one set of writers, and the comment by another. But not withstanding, we have the same tale told us in so many different Papers, and, if occasion requires, in so many articles of the same Paper ; notwithstanding, in a scar city of foreign posts, we hear the same story repeated by different advices from Paris, Brussels, the Hague,
and from every great town in Europe ; notwithstand ing the multitude of annotations, explanations, reflec tions, and various readings which it passes through, our time lies heavy on our hands till the arrival of the fresh mail : we long to receive further particulars, to hear what will be the next step, or what will be the
consequences of that which we have already taken. A westerly wind keeps the whole town in suspense, and puts a stop to conversation. The general curiosity has been raised and inflamed by our late wars, and, if rightly directed, might be of good use to a person who
has such a thirst awakened in him. "
This appetite for novelty, if it cannot be satisfied
by the perusal of books, Addison proposes to satisfy by the preparation of a Newspaper containing home in telligence in lieu of the foreign News, which had be come scarce since the conclusion of the war. In the humour of the following proposition,* we see the ori ginal of many jokes on the same subject which have been more recently published :—
Mr.
1688, aged 42 ; he was buried in the yard belonging to the Blackfriars' Church in London. "
L'Estrange.
WHITEHALL THE FOUNTAIN-HEAD FOR NEWS. 153
was first used; the arose soon afterwards.
antagonistic appellation, Whig,
The people, whilst deprived of free Newspapers, had a keen appetite for News, and Macaulay in his History* has given us a graphic sketch of the avidity with which the neighbourhood of the Court was sought
by those who thirsted for information of current events. " Whitehall," he says, " naturally became the chief staple of News. Whenever there was a rumour that anything important had happened, or was about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from the fountain-head. The galleries presented the appearance of a modern club-room at an anxious time. They were full of people inquiring whether the Dutch mail was in ; what tidings the express from France had brought; whether John Sobieskyhad beaten the Turks; whether the Doge of Genoa was really at Paris. These were matters about which it was safe to talk
aloud; but there were subjects concerning which infor mation was asked and given in whispers : Had Halifax got the better of Rochester ; was there to be a Parlia ment; was the Duke of York really going to Scotland ; had Monmouth really been summoned from the Hague. Men tried to read the countenance of every minister as he went through the throng to and from the Royal closet. All sorts of auguries were drawn from the tone in which His Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or from the laugh with which His Majesty honoured a jest of the Lord Privy Seal ; and, in a few hours, the hopes and fears inspired by such slight indications had spread to
all the coffee-houses from St. James's to the Tower. " * History of England, Vol. p. 365.
I. ,
154
THE FOURTH ESTATE.
The same admirable pen gives us a picture of the state of the press in the later days of the feeble and profligate Charles. "In 1685," says Macaulay, "no thing like the daily Paper of our time existed, or could exist. Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary skill was to be found. Freedom too was wanting, a want as fatal as that of either capital or skill. The press was not indeed at that moment under a general censorship. The licensing act, which had been passed
Any
soon after the Restoration, had expired in 1679.
person might therefore print, at his own risk, a history, a sermon, or a poem, without the previous approbation of any public officer; but the judges were unanimously of opinion that this liberty did not extend to Gazettes ; and that, by the common law of England, no man not authorized by the Crown had a right to publish political News. * While the Whig party was still formidable, the Goverment thought it expedient occa sionally to connive at the violation of this rule. Dur ing the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, many Newspapers were suffered to appear ; the Protestant Intelligencer, the Current Intelligence, the Domestic Intelligence, the True News, the London Mercury. None of these was published oftener than twice a week.
None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quan tity of matter which one of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in two numbers of the Times. After the defeat of the Whigs, it was no longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the use of that which all his judges had pronounced to be his undoubted prerogative. At the close of his reign,
* London Gazette, May 5th and 17th, 1680.
THE LONDON GAZETTE.
15,1
no Newspaper was suffered without his allowance; and his allowance was given exclusively to the London Gazette. The London Gazette came out only on Mondays and Thursdays. The contents generally were a Royal proclamation ; two or three Tory addresses ; notices of two or three promotions, an account of a skirmish between the Imperial troops and the Janissaries on the Danube ; a description of a highwayman ; an announcement of a grand cockfight between two persons of honour; and an advertisement offering a reward for a strayed dog. The whole made up two pages of moderate size. Whatever was commu nicated respecting matters of the highest moment was communicated in the most meagre and formal style. Sometimes, indeed, when the Government was disposed to gratify the public curiosity respecting an important transaction, a broadside was put forth giving fuller details than could be found in the Gazette ; but neither the Gazette, nor any supplementary broadside printed by authority, ever contained any intelligence which it did not suit the purposes of the Court to publish. The most important Parliamentary debates, the most important State trials recorded in our history, were passed over in profound silence. * In the Capital, the coffee-houses supplied in some measure the place of a journal. Thither the Londoners flocked, as the Athe nians of oldflocked to the market-place, to hear whether there was any News. There men might learn how brutally a Whig had been treated the day before in
* For example, there is not a word in the Gazette about the im portant Parliamentary proceedings of November, 1685, or about the trial and acquittal of the seven bishops. —Macaulay.
156 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
Westminster Hall ; what horrible accounts the letters from Edinburgh gave of the torturing the Covenanters ; how grossly the Navy Board had cheated the Crown in the victualling of the fleet; and what grave charges the Lord Privy Seal had brought against the Treasury, in the matter of the hearth money. But people who lived at a distance from the great theatre of political contention could be kept regularly informed of what
*
It is scarcely necessary to say that there were then no Provincial Newspapers. Indeed, except in the Capital, and at two Universities, there was scarcely a printer in the Kingdom. The only press in England, north of Trent, appears to have been at York. " *
Macaulay winds up with a bitter, and perhaps deserved, denunciation of L'Estrange, whose intolerant Toryism, pursued its victims, even beyond the grave, with an inveteracy equal to that of Anthony Wood.
James the Second, like his brother, had a hatred of free Newspapers, and one of the laws made during his short reign was directed against the press. When the intelligence reached him that the Duke of Mon mouth had landed in the west—Argyle being in arms in the north—the Parliament was asked for money to crush the armed rebellion, and for a revival of the statute of 13th and 14th Charles the Second, that the rebellion in type might also be suppressed. The obedient Houses granted both demands, and the tram-
* Life of Thomas Gent. A complete list of all printing-houses in 1724, will be found in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. There had then been a great increase within a few years in the number of presses, and yet there were thirty-four counties in which there was no printer, one of those counties being Lancashire. —Macaulay.
was passing there only by means of News-letters.
**
FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON OPINION. 157
mels of printing were strengthened, whilst taxes were spent upon an armed force to keep James upon the throne. The imposition of this additional fetter on free expression calls from the statesman and historian Fox, the remark, that " this circumstance, important as it is, does not seem to have excited much attention at the time, which, considering the general principles then in fashion is not surprising. That it should have been scarcely noticed by any writer," continues he, " is more wonderful. It is time, however, that the terror inspired by the late prosecutions for libels, and violent conduct of the courts upon such occasions, rendered a formal destruction of the liberty of the press a matter of less importance. So little does the magis tracy, when it is inclined to act tyrannically, stand in need of tyrannical laws to effect its purpose. The bare silence and acquiescence of the legislature is in such
a case fully sufficient to annihilate, practically speak
ing, every right and liberty of the subject. "*
The Courts of Law, as well as the Parliament
House, interfered with the press. Soon after the execution of the supposed murderer of Sir Edmunbury Godfrey, there appeared in a Paper of the period a letter criticising the evidence adduced before the coroner's jury, and contending that the deceased knight had destroyed himself, and had not fallen by the hands of others. This letter was published in a journal called The Loyal Protestant Intelligence, the owner of which, one Nathaniel Thompson, was, it appears, known as the " Loyal Protestant Printer. "
Some of the witnesses in the case of Edmundbury * Fox's History of James the Second.
1-58 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
felt aggrieved at these comments in the Newspaper, and a prosecution was instituted against Thompson the printer, and the authors of the critique, William Pain and John Farwell. The trial took place at Guildhall, and a verdict of guilty having been returned, Mr. Justice Jones sentenced Thompson and Farwell to the pillory and to pay a fine of £100, whilst Pain escaped with a fine only. This judgment was carried out. On the 5th of July, 1682, Thompson and Farwell stood in the pillory in the Old Palace Yard at West minster, with this writing over their heads, "For libelling the justice of the nation, by making the world believe that Sir Edmundbury Godfrey murdered himself. "* Had Charles Dickens written in such times, he would inevitably have been made a martyr, had he ventured to give such admirable and useful
descriptions as the one in Pickwick, where the tyran nical rascalities of Mr. Fang are exposed.
The slavery of the press, whilst James the Second held power in England, was further manifested in the case of the pious and exemplary Richard Baxter, who having written a Paraphrase on the New Testament, certain passages were culled from (it said by
and declared to be an attack on the
L'Estrange,)
bishops. The infamous Jeffreys sat as judge in the case, and his coarse brutality towards the pious divine has formed subject of remark to every writer who has referred to the trial. Baxter was condemned, and fined £500, and ordered to lie in prison till the money was paid. A still more cruel case was that of the Eev. Samuel Johnson, who, publishing an address to
State Trials, Vol. VIII. , p. 1389.
*
a
it, is
A CLERGYMAN PILLORIED AND FLOGGED. 159
the Protestants of the army, was arrested and tried at the King's Bench Bar at Westminster, 21st of June, 1686, on a charge of seditious and scandalous libel against the Government. The address was far less severe than most of the leading articles of a modern
morning Paper, yet Johnson was ordered to be de graded from the Church, to be pilloried, and to be flogged from Newgate to Tyburn. This abominable sentence was executed. The ceremony of degradation was performed by three supple and obedient church men, Dr. Crew, Bishop of Durham, Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Kochester, and Dr. White, Bishop of Peterborough. These dignitaries had the prisoner taken to the Chap
ter House of St. Pauls, where they put a square cap upon his head, and then took it off; they then pulled off his gown and girdle, and put a Bible into his hands, "which he not parting with readily, they took from him by force. "* From the cathedral Johnson
was taken to Newgate, where the common hangman awaited him, and he was flogged from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, " which he endured with as firm a courage and as Christian behaviour as ever was discovered on any such occasion ; though, at the same time, he had
a quick sense of every stripe which was given him, with a whip of nine cords, knotted, to the number of
He was likewise put thrice into the pillory, and mulcted of 500 marks. When James's love of Popery had lost him the throne, the Parliament was called upon to take Johnson's case into consideration; and, so great was their sense of the injustice done him, that they declared the judgment to have been illegal
* State Trials, Vol. II. , p. 1352. f State Trials, Vol. II. , p- 1351.
317. "t
100 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
and cruel, and the ecclesiastical proceedings against him to be null and void. They also solicited the new King to grant him some compensation, —which was done.
These attempts for the suppression of printed thought by James had, however, again the effect which was produced by similar tyranny in the times of his
father, Charles the First. The printers of London dared not multiply the opinions of those who differed from the Crown ; but the printers of Holland had no such scruples, and again the shores of England were invaded by pamphlets produced at the Hague. Nor censors, nor custom-houses could stay the force of this inroad. The people would have Protestant books and News. The King issued two proclamations in support of his act of Parliament. These manifestoes were declared to be for " restraining the spreading of false News. " But in vain. The printed paper still poured in from Holland, and a King and Queen soon followed from the same shores to occupy the throne
from which the press-coercing James was compelled to flee.
CHAPTER V.
A CENTURY OF NEWSPAPERS. THE ORANGE INTELLI GENCER OF 1688 TO THE TIMES OF 1788.
" For almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the unshackled and independent energies of the press. — Hallam's C'awititutional History.
The Orange Newspapers. —The Career of Tutchin. — Judge Jeffreys. — Defoe. — The time of Pope and the first Daily Paper. — Bolingbroke. —Swift. —Addison. —The first Stamp Act and its effects. —Steele expelled the House of Commons. —Fielding. —Foote. —Burke. —Dr. Johnson. —Smollet. —Wilkes. — Churchill. —Junius. —Chatterton. — The House of Commons and the Printers.
THE press was emancipated from the censorship soon after the Revolution, and the Government
(as Macaulay says) immediately fell under the censor ship of the press. Both Whigs and Tories looked to the Papers of the time to gain support for their different opinions, and the people were thus again openly and avowedly appealed to for a judgment on political questions. The Government set up the Orange Intel ligencer for the promulgation and support of their policy, whilst the opposition were equally provided with journals in which the character and proceedings of the authorities were unscrupulously criticised. All
this was favourable to the cause of rational liberty; since, in the contest of argument, there was little fear
but truth would ultimately gain an advantage over
error. The Newspapers too became a sort of safety-
valve by which the effervescing elements of society VOL. I. L
162 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
(so to speak) might find at least a partial means for venting sentiments, which when restrained become dangerous. The press grew rapidly with its increased freedom, and became active, unscrupulous, and influ ential. Speaking of this period, Hallam says : —" vigilance, and indeed for almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the un shackled and independent energies of the press. " In the reign of William the Third, and through the influence of the popular principle in our constitution, this finally became free. The licensing act, suffered to expire in 1679, was revived in 1685 for seven
In 1692, it was continued till the end of the session of 1693. Several attempts were afterwards made to renew its operation, which the less courtly Whigs combined with the Tories and Jacobites to defeat. *
Both parties indeed employed the press with great diligence in this reign ; but while one degenerated into malignant calumny and misrepresentation, the signal victory of liberal principles is manifestly due to the boldness and eloquence with which they were promul gated. Even during the (short) existence of a cen sorship, a host of unlicensed publications, by the negligence or connivance of the officers employed to seize them, bore witness to the inefficacy of its restric tions. The bitterest invectives of Jacobitism were
* Commons' Journals, 9th January, and 11th February, 1694-5. A bill to the same effect, sent down from the Lords, was thrown out, 17th April, 1695. Another bill was rejected on the second reading in 1697, 3rd April.
For
years.
mount's publication. 163
circulated in the first four years after the Revolution. * Politicians were severely criticised by their opponents, but, since both sides had to pass the same ordeal, the ultimate result was a gradual diminution of partizan violence and a growing moderation, both in the exercise of power and in the acrimony of opposition. " States men had a scrutiny to endure which was becoming day by day more severe. The extreme violence of opinions abated. The Whigs learned moderation in office ; the Tories learned the principles of liberty in opposition. The parties almost constantly approxi mated, often met, and sometimes crossed each other. There were occasional bursts of violence ; but, from the time of the Revolution, those bursts were constantly becoming less and less terrible. "t
The press, though enjoying more liberty, was still occasionally brought in contact with the law when the
Government chose to regard its productions as danger ous. Thus, before the expiration of the licensing act, a publication, entitled " King William and Queen Mary Conquerors," said to have been written by C. Blount, was ordered (1693), by the two Houses of Parliament, to be burned by the common hangman, whilst the licenser, Mr. Bohun, was removed from his office for allowing it to be printed. ! In 1744 Sir John Knight's speech in Parliament against the bill for naturalizing Protestant foreigners having been
* Somer's Tracts passim. John Dunton the bookseller, in the History of his Life and Errors, hints that unlicensed books could be published by a douceur to Robert Stephens, the messenger of the press, whose business it was to inform against them. —Note to Hallam.
t Macaulay's Essays, Vol. p. 204. Tindal's Rapin, Book XXV.
L 2
X
I. ,
in i THE FOURTH ESTATE.
printed and circulated by the Tory party, it was ordered by the House, that the speech contained false and scandalous and seditious expressions and reflec tions, and that it be burnt by the hangman. The
attended in Palace Yard to see this order executed. At the end of the same year,* a complaint was made to the House of Commons that a
News-writer, named Dyer, had presumed to take notice of their proceedings in one of his productions, and an order was issued that this offender against the privileges of Parliament, should be summoned by the Serjeant- at-Arms, to attend at the sitting of the House ; a command which he obeyed, and after an examination he acknowledged his offence, and was ordered to kneel at the bar, whilst the Speaker reprimanded him "for
his great presumption. " The Commons afterwards came to a resolution " that no News-letter writers do, in their letters or other papers that they disperse, presume to intermeddle with the debates, or any other proceedings of this House. "t Here was a direct avowal of a determination to keep all their proceedings out of print. The Parliament objected, in fact, to the scrutiny of the people ; but some of their debates were printed, nevertheless, from time to time. Dyer appears not to have been altogether intimidated by the Speaker's censure, for we find on record a story which shows that he still continued to issue his News-letters, and
to mention in them the names of peers of Parliament. " One Dyer," says Kennet, "was justly reprimanded by
the Speaker for presuming to represent the proceed ings of the House. But such a gentle rebuke could
* Dec. 21, 1694. t Pari. Hist, Vol. V. , p. 363.
Serjeant-at-Arms
THE FLYING POST. 165
not reform a fellow who wrote for two very necessitous causes, for the Jacobite party and for bread. But the Lord Mohun rebuked him more effectually some time after; for finding him at one of his factious coffee houses, and showing him a letter, wherein his lordship was named, Dyer owned not knowing my lord; who immediately laid on him with cudgel he had
provided for that purpose, and made him swear to have no more to say of the Lord Mohun.
"
In 1697 the Parliament set about the task of re trieving the public credit, and to supply the want of
money the currency of exchequer bills. The News paper known as the Flying Post* thus referred to the
proceedings: — "We hear that when the exchequer notes are given out upon the capilation fund, who soever shall desire specie on them, will have at 5j per cent, of the society of gentlemen that have sub scribed to advance some hundred thousands of pounds, "t The House voted this passage to be malicious insinuation, in order to destroy the credit and currency of the exchequer bills. They ordered the printer, John Salisbury, to be sent for in custody and they
gave leave to bring in bill to prevent the writing, printing, or publishing any News without license. But when such bill was presented by Mr Pulteney
was thrown out before the second reading. " Here was the attempt to revive the licensing act which Hallam refers to. It was, as we have seen, defeated in an early stage of its progress, and this result may be partially attributed to the circulation of tract,! written
Published April 1697. Pari. Hist. , Vol. V. , p. 1164. State Tracts, William III. , Vol. II. , p. 614.
t
1,
by
t
it,
*
it
a
a
a
;
a
it
a
16C THE FOURTH ESTATE.
like Milton's, to urge the Parliament to leave the press unshackled. The question was well put before the Legislature in this pamphlet, and its author had the satisfaction to find that printing was to remain for a time without any additional trammels. Meantime Newspapers had gone on increasing. From the day of the first appearance of the Public Intelligencer in 1661 till 1688, there had appeared altogether about seventy different Journals. Some of these lived but a
few numbers, others were more permanent ; whilst one of them, the London Gazette, remains still in existence. Within the four years next after 1688, no less than twenty-six Papers were added to the list. The word Reform now found its way into the heading of a Paper conducted by Dr. J. Wellwood, whose lucubrations
the Mercurius Reformatus. Other novelties also appeared; and the competition, begotten of in creased supply, had the effect of tasking the inventive faculties of projectors. Thus the Flying Post, in 1695, suggests, " that if any gentleman has a mind to oblige his country friend or correspondent with this account of public affairs, he can have it for twopence of J. Salisbury, at the Rising Sun in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which being blank, he may thereon
write his own affairs, or the material News of the day. " Here we see an indication that the News-letter* was not forgotten; and this is still further shown in the case of another Journal published by Ichabod Dawks
* The last two volumes of the Stepney Papers in the British Museum contain — " Letter of News transmitted to Mr. Stepney from the Secretary of State's office by Mr Ellis, by Mr Yard, and Mr Warre," Vol 21 ; " Papers of News transmitted to Mr. Stepney by Mr Cardonnel, (Secretary to the Duke of Marlborough,) during the campaigns of
graced
QUEEN ANNE. 167
in 1696, which was printed in script, and on letter-
paper to imitate an ordinary handwriting, a portion being left blank to be filled up by the purchaser before
he despatched it by post. The increase of such prints was encouraged by the increased facilities for their circulation. The Post Office, which had been esta blished by Charles the First, was interrupted by the Civil Wars only to be put on a more secure footing when those wars were at an end ; and, when William
and Mary occupied the throne, the postal service was still further extended, and many of the Journals were
published on the days most convenient for despatch through its medium.
Anne ascended the throne on the 8th of March, 1 702, and her reign is memorable in the annals of the press. It was marked by a law giving copyright to authors, by the establishment of the first daily Newspaper, by the appearance of great names in the list of writers for the public prints, and by the impo
sition of a stamp upon Newspapers, and a duty on advertisements.
In May 1702 the Parliament took cognizance of several publications which were alleged to contain libellous and dangerous matter. Amongst other offenders was Dr. Drake, who escaped with a censure ; whilst another writer saw his production burnt by the hangman ; and a third, the Rev. Dr. Bincke, was reported to the bishop of his diocese as a preacher and
1702—1706, and from Sir Lambert Blackwell, Mr. Chetwynd, and Mr. Broughton, English ministers resident in Italy during the same period. " These letters are respectively entitled " Whitehall News, " Edinburgh News," " Camp News," " Italian News. " &c.
Queen
1G8 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
publisher of scandalous and offensive remarks. All the writings thus denounced had a character regarded
then as politically dangerous.
At the opening of the year 1 704, the editor of the
Paper called the Observator fell under the displeasure of the Parliament, in consequence of some remarks he had made on occasional conformity. A resolution was adopted, " That the Observator, from the 8th to the 11th of December, 1703, contains matters scandal ous and malicious, reflecting on the proceedings of the House, tending to the promotion of sedition in the kingdom; and that Tutchin the author, How the
printer, and Bragg the publisher of that Paper, should be taken into custody by the Sergeant-at-Arms. " Tutchin set the House at defiance, absconded, " went on in his way of writing," and made some further sharp remarks upon a speech of a member of Parliament, Sir John Packington. Upon this the Commons were
again appealed to, and they adopted an address to the Queen, praying that a proclamation be issued for appre hending the contumacious writer, printer, and pub lisher, and offering a reward to any person who should betray their hiding-place.
The writer who thus braved the wrath of the Legis lature had suffered much, and unjustly, at the hands of his political opponents; and, as in the case of Lilburn, a youth of suffering and wrong would seem to have prepared Tutchin for a manhood of determined action against those whom he regarded as his political foes. In the chronicles* of that assize in which the path of
* The Western Martyrologj', or The Bloody Assizes, quoted in State Trials, Vol. XIV. , p. 1195.
THE TRIAL OF TUTCHIN. 169
" Mr. John Tutchin, a young gentleman of Hampshire, who, having had the misfortune, with many others of his acquaintance, to be in the interest of the Duke of Monmouth, was taken a prisoner by the county guard. " When seized he concealed his real name, and was committed to Dorchester gaol as Thomas Pitts, and there being no evidence against him he was acquitted. Before Tutchin could leave the prison, Jeffreys learned who he really was, and determined to be revenged for the deception that had been practised. He set the
to endeavour to extort a confession from the acquitted prisoner, but in vain ; and Tutchin was once again brought into court, when Jeffreys, " not caring to indict him again for rebellion, pretended that the crime of changing his name deserved a severe sen tence," and sentenced him to remain in prison for seven years ; and further ordered, that once every year he should be whipped through all the market towns of Dorsetshire; that he should pay a fine of 100 marks to the King, and find security for his good behaviour during life.
"It was observable," continues the historian of the trial, "when this sentence was passed upon Tutchin, that the ladies in the court, of whom there were a great many,all burst out a-crying, but Jeffreys turn ing towards them, said, 'Ladies, if you did but know what a villain this is, as well as I do, you would say this sentence is not half bad enough for him. ' "
Upon passing the sentence, the Clerk of the Ar raigns stood up and said, " My Lord, there are a great
Jeffreys was marked by a string of gibbets, and the victims were counted by hundreds, we find notice of
gaoler
170 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
many market towns in this county ; the sentence reaches to a whipping about once a fortnight, and he is a very
young man. " " "Aye," replied Jeffreys,
he isayoungman. buthe is an old rogue, and all the interest in England shall not
reverse the sentence I have passed upon him. "
" Certainly," says the reporter of this specimen of
judicial conduct during the well-named bloody assize, " no devil incarnate could rage, no Billingsgate woman could scold worse than this judge did at this young gentleman whilst he was at the bar. He called him a thousand rogues and villains, told him he was a rebel from Adam, that never any of his family had the least loyalty ; and, continued he, 'I understand you are a wit and a poet ; pray, sir, let you and I cap verses. " Tut- chin smiled, and replied, he knew on what ground and when he was over-matched. " Lying under the barbarous sentence, his friends advised Tutchin to
sue for a pardon, but he refused to do so, and with his own hand drew up a petition to the King, who was then at Winchester. It was duly presented, and the Court and the King, it was said, esteemed it a barbarous sentence, but all the answer that could be got was from Lord Sunderland, that Mr Tutchin must wait with patience. The next paragraphs of the nar rative of this interesting case throw a curious light
upon the customs and morality of times when this News-writer lived :—
Mr. Tutchin hereupon endeavoured to get a pardon from the people who had grants of lives, many of them 500, some 1000, more or less, according as they had interest in the King ; but Jeffreys would not so much as hear his name mentioned, and
the sentence was ordered to be executed.
TUTCHIN IN GAOL. 171
Four or five days before the execution of the sentence, a brother-in-law of Mr. Tutchin, a physician, persuaded him to take a dose of physic to make himself sick, by which means the execution might be put off, and perhaps in that time some means might be found for his enlargement : He took the dose, and in three or four days the small-pox came out very thick upon him, no man ever had them to a higher degree ; and in that condition he lay by himself in prison, nobody to look after him but his fellow-prisoners, for there being a pestilential dis temper in the prison, of which some scores died every week, the magistrates of the town would not suffer any communication with the prisoners.
Mr. Tutchin lying in this miserable condition, and his life being despaired of, his friends worked the easier with Jeffreys to get the sentence reversed, which some people would have believed a sign of repentance in Jeffreys, had he not taken the money himself. After Mrs. Tutchin had done this last kind office for her son, she sickened of the small pox and died, his brother and two sisters fell sick of the same distemper ; so that when Mr. Tutchin had friends allowed to come to him, like Job's com forters, they brought him the tidings that his mother was dead, and all the relations he had in the world were a-dying, and that they had contracted for a pardon for more money than he was worth, for a life which he never valued. So he was popt into a pardon amongst others ; for it was usual at that time for one courtier to get a pardon of the King for half a score, and then, by the assistance of Jeffreys, to augment the sum to four score or an hundred, and so this unfortunate gentleman fortu nately got out of his broil.
But we must not leave Mr. Tutchin here, though what after wards we shall say of him, does not relate to what was trans acted in the west, yet it may not be amiss to show how the providence of God does often change the face of things, and alter the circumstances and conditions of men, so that those who boast of their power, and exercise their authority with the greatest severity, many times become the scorn and contempt of those they have triumphed over. Who could have thought, when Jeffreys past that sentence on Mr. Tutchin in the west,
172 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
that ever Mr. Tutchin should see that wicked judge a prisoner, apprehended by the injured people, and committed by a tool of his own party ? Yet it so happened.
For Jeffreys, endeavouring to make his escape beyond sea in a sailor's habit, was discovered by one to whom he had done some acts of injustice, and was taken in Anchor-and-Hope Alley, in Wapping, and by the mob carried before the instrument of Popery, Sir J C , then Lord Mayor of the city of London, and by him committed to the Tower.
Mr. Tutchin, hearing of this, went to give his Lordship a visit : who did not know Mr. Tutchin at first, he being much altered with the small pox ; but Jeffreys, understanding who he was, told him he was glad to see him ; Mr. Tutchin answered he was glad to see him in that place. Jeffreys returned, that time and place happened to all men, and that when a man was born, he knew not what death he should die, nor what his cir cumstances should be in this life, and abundance of such cant ; but added, that he had served his master very faithfully, according to his conscience. Mr. Tutchin asked him, where his conscience was when he passed that sentence on him in the west ? Jeffreys said, you were a young man, and an enemy to the Government, and might live to do abundance of mischief; and it was part of my instructions to spare no man of courage, parts, or estate; but withal added, that his instructions were much more severe than the execution of them, and that at his return he was snubbed at Court for being too merciful. So, after he had treated Mr. Tutchin with a glass of wine, Mr. Tutchin went away.
Soon after this, Jeffreys had a barrel of oysters sent him to the Tower, which he caused to be opened, saying, he thanked God he had some friends left. But when the oysters were tumbled out on the table, a halter came out with them, which made him change his countenance, and so palled his stomach, that he could eat none of them. This was confidently reported to be done by Mr. Tutchin : but I having heard him protest that he was not in the least concerned therein, we must believe it to be done by another hand.
tcjtchin's
At the end of the year 1704, Tutchin was tried at the Guildhall, London, for a libel contained in his Paper, the Observator, when the Attorney General, Sir E. Northey, in his address for the prosecution, said the Crown laid the information against Mr. Tutchin " for a few of his observations of the many he hath writ. It is a great while that he has done it," urged this legal functionary, " and it has been the great in dulgence of the Government that he has not been prosecuted before. He has been taken notice of by the House of Commons, and been before the Secretary
of State, where he has been admonished to take care of what he should write ; but he would not take warn
The trial proceeded, the printer of the Paper, John How, giving evidence against Tutchin. This witness said that the Observator was usually published weekly, but sometimes oftener, the first number being issued in April, 1702; that about 266 numbers had been published ; and that Tutchin was the writer of
them all. The counsel for the accused took some legal objections to the case for the prosecution, and though
the jury found a partial verdict against him, the News- writer escaped from the clutches of the law in this instance, and continued to labour as a journalist. Tutchin was abused by Swift as the writer of the Ob servator — a sufficient proof that the Paper did good service to the party it supported ; but finding that his efforts could not be stayed by written arguments, his enemies availed themselves of brute force. One night the unfortunate News-writer was waylaid in the night,
and beaten so cruelly that he died of the wounds thus inflicted.
observator. 173
ing. "
17 1 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
One of the libels (and they all now seem very harm less) charged against Tutchin, referred to the case of
thought —
The author of Robinson Crusoe was a distinguished member of the corps of early political writers of this
another sufferer for freedom of printed Daniel Defoe.
period.
In 1700 he published his satire The True-
Born Englishman, and two years afterwards paid the
penalty of open-speaking, by being sentenced to the
pillory for publishing a pamphlet entitled A Short
Way with the Dissenters. Fines and imprisonment
could not, however, destroy his energies. In Newgate
he matured his plans for further literary labours ; he
made the pillory the subject of an ode; and, whilst
yet in gaol, started his Review, which he kept up for
nine years.
The House of Commons from time to time con tinued to use its power against any person who printed anything regarded as injurious to its dignity. In 1700 the Sergeant-at-Arms apprehended David Edwards, who had printed The Memorial of the Church of England which the Queen had complained of, but the House was unable to discover the writer of the offen sive publication. In the following year the House expelled Mr. Asgill, one of their own members, because
he had written a treatise some passages of which they
regarded as highly profane, and reflecting on the Chris tian religion. This work they ordered to be burnt by the hangman. In 1709 Dr. Sacheveral's publica tions were condemned by Parliament, and ordered to be burnt.
The many circumstances, however, which had sti-
THE FIRST DAILY PAPER.
175
mulated the production of Journals had not, up to this period, induced the appearance of a daily Paper. That was a step in advance reserved for the reign when the victories of Marlborough and Rooke, the
political contests of Godolphin and Bolingbroke, and the writ
ings of Addison, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Steele, and Swift created a mental activity in the nation which could not wait from week to week for its News. Hence the appearance of a morning Paper in 1709, under the title of the Daily Courant. When this was offered to the English people there were eighteen other Papers published in London, and among their titles we find a British Apollo, a Postman, an Evening Post, a General Postcript, and a City Intelligencer. The editor of the Evening Post of September 6, 1709, reminds the public that " there must be three or four pounds a-year paid for written News," &c. —that is to say, for the News-letters which thus seem to have been still competing with public prints—whilst the Evening Post might be had for a much more moderate sum.
Not only in frequency of appearance did the Newspapers of Queen Anne's day surpass their prede cessors : they began to assume a loftier political position, and to take on a better outward shape— though still poor enough in this respect. The very earliest Newspapers only communicated intelligence without giving comment ; subsequently we find Papers giving political discussions without News. In the publications subsequent to 1700 we find these two elements of a journal more frequently united. Mr. Hallam is inclined to regard this as the period when what he terms " regular Newspapers" began to obtain
176 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
political importance in our constitutional system. He says, " The publication of regular Newspapers partly designed for the communication of intelligence, partly for the discussion of political topics, may be referred upon the whole to the reign of Anne, when they ob tained great circulation, and became the accredited organs of different factions. "*
The year that produced the first daily Newspaper in England, gave birth also to the first of a group of publications which had many of the characteristic features of Journals, and were at the time regarded as such, though they cannot now be called Newspapers. They appeared at stated intervals, occasionally gave intelligence of passing events, and comments on pass ing events, contained advertisements, and, when the stamp was imposed on Newspapers, suffered the in fliction of that impost equally with their more political
rivals. They were — The Tatler, started in 1709 ; the Spectator, in 1711; the Guardian, and the Englishman, in 1713 ; and the Freeholder, in 1715. These, though now seen in compact volumes, were originally issued in separate sheets, as their numbering indicates ; and they contained, in addition to the elegantly-written papers now preserved, various items of News and advertisements, as the originals in the British Museum
Library bear witness. A list of noble names is sug gested by the mention of these works. Addison and Steele, Swift and Bolingbroke, come at once into the arena, as mental combatants in the written political strife of the period. Swift, when he took side with the Tories, used his power of language and ready pen
* Hallam's Constitutional History.
addison's quidnunc. 177
in the paper started by that party under the title of the Examiner ;* Bolingbroke wrote in the same jour nal; whilst the more elegant and familiar Addison, and the ready and versatile Steele, devoted their efforts to the service of the Tatler, the Spectator, and the Guardian. The Freeholder, which had an almost exclusively political object, was the sole production of Addison, who sought by its influence to aid the Govern ment, and to neutralize some of the injury inflicted on his party by the Examiner of his political antagonists.
Some pleasant Newspaper sketches are to be found scattered through the pages of these publications.
The Spectator)- gives us a portrait of the quidnunc of that day, drawn by himself: —
I wonder that, in the present situation of affairs, you can take pleasure in writing anything but News ; for, in a word, who minds anything else ? the pleasure of increasing in knowledge, and learning something new every hour of life, is the noblest entertainment of a rational creature. I have a very good ear for a secret, and am naturally of a communicative temper ; by which means I am capable of doing you great services in this
way. In order to make myself useful, I am early in the anti- chamber, where I thrust my head into the thick of the press, and catch the News at the opening of the door, while it is warm. Sometimes I stand by the beef-eaters, and take the buzz as it passes by me. At other times I lay my ear close to the wall, and suck in many a valuable whisper, as it runs in a straight line from corner to corner. When I am weary with
* Hallam says, " Bolingbroke' s letter to the Examiner, in 1710, excited so much attention, that it was answered by Lord Cowper, then Chancellor, in a letter to the Tatler. "— Somer's Tracts, Vol. XIII. ,
p. 75. Where Sir Walter Scott justly observes, that the fact of two such statesmen becoming the correspondents of periodical publications shows the influence they must have acquired over the public mind.
t No. 625, for Friday, Nov. 26, 1714.
VOL. I. M
178 THE FOURTH ESTATE.
standing, I repair to one of the neighbouring coffee-houses, where I sit sometimes for a whole day, and have the News as as it comes from Court fresh and fresh. In short, Sir, I spare no pains to know how the the world goes. A piece of News loses its flavour when it hath been an hour in the air. I love, if 1 may so speak, to have it fresh from the tree ; and to convey it to my friends before it is faded. Accordingly my expenses in coach-hire make no small article : which you may believe, when I assure you, that I post away from coffee-house to coffee house, and forestall the Evening Post by two hours. There is a certain gentleman, who hath given me the slip twice or thrice, and hath been beforehand with me at Child's. But I have
played him a trick. I have purchased a pair of the best coach- horses I could buy for money, and now let him outstrip me if he can. Once more, Mr. Spectator, let me advise you to deal in News. You may depend upon my assistance. But I must break off abruptly, for I have twenty letters to write.
Addison dilates upon the strong appetite of his cotemporaries, in 1 7 1 2, for Newspapers. " There is no humour in my countrymen," he says, " which I am more inclined to wonder at than their general thirst after News. There are about half-a-dozen ingenious men,
who live very plentifully upon this curiosity of their fellow-subjects. They all of them receive the same ad vices from abroad, and very often in the same words ; but their way of cooking it is so very different, that there is no citizen, who has an eye to the public good, that can leave the coffee-house with peace of mind be
fore he has given every one of them a reading. These several dishes of News are so very agreeable to the palate of my countrymen, that they are not only pleased with them when they are served up hot, but when they are again set cold before them, by those penetrating politicians, who oblige the public with their reflections
THE SPECTATOR'S COMIC NEWSPAPER. 179
and observations upon every piece of intelligence that is sent us from abroad. The text is given us by one set of writers, and the comment by another. But not withstanding, we have the same tale told us in so many different Papers, and, if occasion requires, in so many articles of the same Paper ; notwithstanding, in a scar city of foreign posts, we hear the same story repeated by different advices from Paris, Brussels, the Hague,
and from every great town in Europe ; notwithstand ing the multitude of annotations, explanations, reflec tions, and various readings which it passes through, our time lies heavy on our hands till the arrival of the fresh mail : we long to receive further particulars, to hear what will be the next step, or what will be the
consequences of that which we have already taken. A westerly wind keeps the whole town in suspense, and puts a stop to conversation. The general curiosity has been raised and inflamed by our late wars, and, if rightly directed, might be of good use to a person who
has such a thirst awakened in him. "
This appetite for novelty, if it cannot be satisfied
by the perusal of books, Addison proposes to satisfy by the preparation of a Newspaper containing home in telligence in lieu of the foreign News, which had be come scarce since the conclusion of the war. In the humour of the following proposition,* we see the ori ginal of many jokes on the same subject which have been more recently published :—
Mr.
