APPENDIX.

APPENDIX A.

[ Page 4. ]

The date of the newspaper mentioned in the note on page 4 (viz. Nov. 3d to Dec. 3d, 1640), is the earliest date of the Thomason Collection in the British Museum, of publications made during the period of the English commonwealth. These range from Nov. 3, 1640, to May, 1661. Besides the Perfect Occurrences of Every daies iournal in Parliament, we have a memorandum of another paper with the title of Diurnal Occurrences in Parliament, the dates of which are given thus, "from 3d Nov. 1640 to 3d Nov. 1641."

"The same from 22d Nov. 1641 to 28th March, 1642." "The same, to 17th Oct. 1642."

"The same, ending March 10th, 1648."

In 1642 there was A Diurnal of Dangers.

The first daily newspaper published was supposed to be the Daily Courant, issued in London, England, on the 11th of March, 1702, soon after the accession of Queen Anne. A recent contributor to the London Times asserts that there had been an English daily journal forty-two years before that time. That in 1660, on the 8th, 9th and 10th of March, appeared three numbers of A Perfect Diurnal.

The title "Diurnal," or "Perfect Diurnal," did not necessarily imply a daily publication. The Perfect Occurrences of Every Day's Journal was printed at first once a month, and afterwards weekly. The Diary or Exact Journal was a weekly paper, notwithstanding

its name.

The small newspapers of that day were numerous, and apparently there was much rivalry among them. The titles were often quite

similar, and perhaps sometimes indicate the same paper at different periods. Mercuries were most common, with the addition of a distinctive appellation. Thus, in 1643, there were Mercurius Rusticus, Mercurius Civicus, Mercurius Aulicus, Wednesday's Mercury, Mercurius Britannicus, The Welsh Mercury, Mercurius CambroBritannus; in 1644, Mercurius Civicus, The Court Mercury, &c.; in 1645, Mercurius Veridicus, Mercurius Americanus (perhaps but one number) Mercurius Academicus; in 1646 Mercurius Candidus, Mercurius Diutinus; in 1647, Mercurius Populus, Mercurius AntiPragmaticus, Mercurius Elencticus, Mercurius Rusticus, Mercurius Melancholicus, Mercurius Bellicus, Mercurius Dogmaticus, Mercurius Pragmaticus, &c.

Other titles were: The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, The Parliamentary Scout, The True Informer, The Compleat Intelligencer, Informator Rusticus, The Kingdom's Weekly Post, The Weekly Account, The Scottish Dove, The Spie, all of 1643; The Perfect Occurrences, The Spie from Oxford, A True and Perfect Journal, News from beyond Seas, The Flying Post, The London Post, The Country Foot Post, The Country Messenger, all of 1644. The Moderate Intelligencer, A Diary or Exact Journal (weekly), The Parliament's Post, The Exchange Intelligencer, The City Scout, The Kingdom's Scout, The City's Weekly Post, The Phoenix of Europe, Perfect Occurrences of Parliament, Perfect Passages of Each Dayes Proceedings in Parliament, all of 1645. There were also, Perfect Occurrences of Every Daie iournal in Parliament and other Moderate Intelligence, A Tuesday's Journal of Perfect Passages in Parliament, The Faithfull Post, &c. &c. Private memoranda.-H.

APPENDIX B.

[ Page 15. ]

The following account of the fire in Boston, in the written by the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather.

year 1711, was

"Beginning about seven o'clock in the evening, and finishing before two in the morning, the night between the second and third of October, 1711, a terrible fire laid the heart of Boston, the metropolis of New-English America, in ashes. The occasion of the fire is said to have been by the carelessness of a sottish woman, who suffered a flame, which took the oakum, the picking whereof was her business, to gain too far before it could be mastered. It was not long before it reduced Cornhill into miserable ruins, and it made its impressions into King-Street and Queen-Street, and a great part of Pudding-lane was also lost, before the violence of it could be conquered. Among these ruins, there were two spacious edifices, which until now, made a most considerable figure, because of the public relation to our greatest solemnities in which they had stood from the days of our fathers. The one was the town-house; the other the old meeting-house. The number of houses, and some of them very capacious buildings, which went into the fire, with these, is computed near about a hundred; and the families, which inhabited these houses, cannot but be very many more. It being also a place of much trade, and filled with well-furnished shops of goods, not a little of the wealth of the town was now consumed. But that which very much added to the horror of the dismal night, was the tragical death of many poor men who were killed by the blowing up of houses, or by venturing too far into the fire, for the rescue of what its fierce jaws were ready to prey upon. Of these the bones of seven or eight are thought to be found; and it is feared there may be some strangers, belonging to vessels, besides these, thus buried, of whose unhappy circumstances we are not yet apprised; and others have since died of their wounds. Thus the town of Boston, just going to get beyond four score years of age, and conflicting with much labour and

sorrow, is, a very vital and valuable part of it, soon cut off and flown away."

In the single number of the attempted newspaper, dated Boston, Sept. 25, 1690, is an account of a fire in that city which may properly be introduced here if it were only for its record of the destruction of the best printing press in the country; but the disastrous conflagration which has occurred while these pages are passing through the press, and the remarkable preservation once more of the South Meeting House, add a special interest to it.-H.

"Altho' Boston did a few weeks ago meet with a Disaster by Fire, which consumed about twenty Houses near the Mill Creek, yet about midnight, between the sixteenth and seventeenth of this Instant, another Fire broke forth near the South Meeting-House, which consumed about five or six houses, and had almost carried the Meetinghouse itself, one of the fairest Edifices in the Country, if God had not remarkably assisted the Endeavors of the People to put out the fire. There were two more considerable Circumstances in the Calamities of this Fire; one was that a young man belonging to the House where the Fire began unhappily perished in the Flames; it seems that tho' he might sooner awake than some others who did escape yet he some way lost those Wits that should have taught him to help himself. Another was that the best furnished PRINTING PRESS of those few that we know of in America was lost - a loss not presently to be repaired."

APPENDIX C.

[ Page 17. ]

As this was the first skirmish between printers of newspapers in this country, I will give the following particulars respecting it, which are extracted from the News-Letter and the Gazette. William Brooker, who succeeded Campbell in the post office, had, in an advertisement, mentioned his appointment; and that Campbell was removed from office; this gave offence to Campbell, who endeavored to make it appear that he was not removed. Brooker then published, in No. 4 of the Gazette, the following, to substantiate what he had asserted respecting Campbell. It was inserted in a large type and filled nearly one half of the Gazette.

Post Office, January 11th, 1719. "The good Manners and Caution that has been observed in writing this Paper, 'twas hoped would have prevented any occasion for Controversies of this kind: But finding a very particular Advertisement published by Mr. Campbell in his Boston News-Letter of the 4th Currant, lays me under an absolute Necessity of giving the following Answer thereunto. Mr Campbell begins in saying, The Nameless Author Intimating as if the not mentioning the Author's Name was a fault; But if he will book over the Papers wrote in England (such as the London Gazette, Post-Man, and other Papers of Reputation) he will find their Authors so. As this part of his Advertisement is not very material, I shall say no more thereon; but proceed to Matters of more Moment. Mr. Campbell seems somewhat displeased that the Author says he was removed from being Post-Master. I do hereby declare I was the Person that wrote the said Preamble, as he calls it; and think I could not have given his being turn'd out a softer Epithet. And to convince him (and all Mankind) that it was so, I shall give the following Demonstrations of it. Many Months before John Hamilton, Esq; Deputy Post-Master General of North America displaced the said Mr. Campbell, he received Letters from the Secretary to the Right Honourable the Post-Master General of Great Britain, &c., that there had been several Complaints made against him, and