Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/124

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HISTORY OF JOURNALISM


In the other colonies the newspapers, as they appeared, echoed more or less vigorously the defiance proclaimed by the larger cities. No paper was published in New Hampshire until August, 1756, when Daniel Fowle started the New Hampshire Gazette at Portsmouth. It came out vigorously against the Stamp Act, and continued to be published as usual without stamps. Fowle regarded his own experience with the Boston authorities as a good example of a tyrannical government suppressing a free press, and as late as 1770 he reprinted parts of Andrew Hamilton's speech in behalf of Zenger, as matter that his countrymen should have ever in mind.

In January, 1765, the Portsmouth Mercury and Weekly Advertiser appeared. In its opening address to the public it announced that it would print all the news, even if opposed by an "arbitrary power," since the news was necessary to the people if they were to have those liberties which were "dearer to them than their lives." The paper, however, was not as well handled or printed as the Gazette, and succumbed at the end of three years.

To summarize, there were in 1775, five newspapers published in Boston, one at Salem, and one at Newburyport, making seven in Massachusetts. There was at that time one published at Portsmouth and no other in New Hampshire. One was printed at Newport, and one at Providence, making two in Rhode Island. At New London there was one, at New Haven one, and one at Hartford; in all, three in Connecticut; and thirteen in New England. In the province of New York, three papers were then published, all in the City of New York. In Pennsylvania there were on the first of January, 1775, six; three in English and one in German, in Philadelphia; one in German at Germantown; and one in English and German at Lancaster. Before the end of January, 1775,