EXPLANATION

OF THE

INDIAN GAZETTE.

GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF ONE OF THEIR EXPEDITIONS.

The following divisions explain those on the plate referred to by the numbers.

1. Each of these figures represents 2. They departed from Montthe number ten. They all signify, real-represented by the bird, just | that 18 times 10, or 180 American | taking wing from the top of a Indians took up the hatchet, or de- mountain. The moon, and the clared war, in favor of the French; buck, show the time to have been which is represented by the hatchet in the first quarter of the buckmoon, placed over the arms of France. answering to July.

3. They went by water-signified by the canoe. The number of huts, such as they raise to pass the night | in, shows they were 21 days on their passage.

5. When they arrived near the habitations of their enemies, at sunrise-shewn by the sun being to the eastward of them, beginning, as they think, its daily course; there they lay in wait three days — represented by the hand pointing and the three huts.

4. Then they came on shore, and traveled seven days by land-represented by the foot, and the seven huts.

6. After which, they surprised their enemies, in number 12 times 10, or 120. The man asleep shows how they surprised them, and the hole in the top of the building is supposed to signify that they broke | into some of their habitations in that manner.

7. They killed with the club 8. They lost nine of their own eleven of their enemies, and took men in the action-represented by five prisoners - the former repre- the nine heads within the bow, sented by the club, and the eleven which is the emblem of honor among the Americans; but had none taken prisoners a circumstance they lay great weight on, shown by all the pedestals being empty.

heads; the latter by the figures on the little pedestals.

9. The heads of the arrows, pointing opposite ways, represent the battle.

10. The heads of the arrows, all pointing the same way, signify the flight of the enemy.

MASSACHUSETTS.

BOSTON.

There was not a newspaper published in the English colonies, throughout the extensive continent of North America, until the 24th of April, 1704.

1

John Campbell, a Scotchman, who was a bookseller and postmaster in Boston, was the first who began and established a publication of this kind. It was entitled,

N. E.

The Boston News-Letter.

Published by Authority.o

Numb. 1.

From Monday April 17, to Monday April 24, 1704.

It is printed on half a sheet of pot paper, with a small pica type, folio. The first page is filled with an extract

"The first attempt to set up a newspaper in North America, so far as can be ascertained, was made at Boston in 1690. Only one copy of this sheet is known to be in existence, that being in the state paper office in London." See an entire copy of this, by Samuel A. Green, M.D., in the Historical Magazine for August, 1857. The authorities objected to it. They called it a pamphlet. Felt's Annals of Salem (1849), vol. II, p. 14. If this can be claimed as a newspaper, may also the sheet printed by Samuel Green in 1689, the placard mentioned in the New Hamp. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1, 252? This was issued at the time Dr. Increase Mather was in England, endeavoring to procure a new charter for the colony of Massachusetts. It was entitled The Present State of the New English Affairs, and was published to prevent false reports. Among the notes to a reprint of the first number of the Boston News Letter, we are informed that Campbell was accustomed to write news letters. Nine of these dated 1703, have been published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, in their Proceedings, 1867, p. 485.— M.

2 At the time this paper was first published, and for many years afterwards, there were licensers of the press. "Published by Authority," I presume means nothing more than this; what appeared in the publication was not disapproved by the licensers.