carrying off the types, which were converted into bullets. The loyalists indignantly condemned the act as evidence that the patriots were trying "to restrain the freedom of the press."[1]
Rivington used this ill-treatment as a means of courting British favor. He went to England to procure a new press, and succeeded in securing appointment as King's printer for New York. When the British recaptured the city he returned and, beginning with October 4, 1777, issued his paper anew. He was received as a martyr, welcomed with congratulatory yerses and with a public dinner, and from that time on the Royal Gazette, as he now called his paper, told not only the bitter truth about the Revolutionists but as much more as imagination could conceive and Rivington and his "lying staff" could invent.
That he was determined to recoup his fortunes is shown by the advertisement that he carried for several weeks after he had once more established his paper.
"James Rivington," he aimounces, "has brought back from London an extra fine assortment of London snuffs, shoes, gentleman's silk stockings, fishing tackle, magnifiers, buckles, small-swords, toothpick cases, pen knives, nail scissors, sleeve buttons, etc."[2]
Rivington was a man of unquestioned ability. As one who espoused and defended the Royalist cause, he adopted the royalist costume and dressed in the extreme of fashion — curled and powdered hair, claret-colored coat, scarlet waistcoat trimmed with gold lace, buckskin breeches and top-boots—and he was very fastidious as to the society he kept and the wine he drank. His contempt for the revolutionists is shown in his own story of his treatment
