Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863

It remains to notice but one more of the early Boston editors, who seems to have been an odd fish – somewhat witty, but, to use a homely proverb, 'as rough as a rat-catcher's dog.' He first established the Boston Weekly Rehearsal, in 1731, and afterward the Boston Evening Post. His name was Thomas Fleet. Massachusetts was then a slaveholding country, and Fleet owned several negroes, two of whom he instructed in the art of printing. Their names were Pompey and Cæsar – the only two Romans, I believe, who ever belonged to the printing fraternity. These honest fellows lived and printed until after the war of the Revolution, having become freemen by the Constitution of Massachusetts of 1780. Fleet was droll and witty in the conduct of his paper, especially in his advertisements. Witness the following advertisement of one of his negro women for sale: 'To be sold, by the printer of this paper, the very best negro woman in this town, who has had the small pox and the measles; is as hearty as a horse, as brisk as a bird, will work like a beaver.'

There was a common evil existing in those days which, it is to be feared, has now become chronic. People were prone to omit paying for their newspapers. Fleet had often to complain of this crying sin, even against men of great religious professions. On one occasion he read them quite a severe lesson upon their injustice and oppression in this respect. 'Every one,' says he, 'thinks he has a right to read news, but few find themselves inclined to pay for it. 'Tis a great pity a soil that will bear piety so well, should not produce a tolerable crop of common honesty.'

It is, moreover, slanderously reported in the ancient chronicles, that Fleet was not blessed with the most beautiful and sweet-tempered wife and daughters in Boston. On one occasion he invited a friend to dine with him on pouts, a kind of fish then esteemed a great delicacy, and of which he knew his friend to be remarkably fond. His domestic matters, however, did not move along very smoothly that morning, and when they sat down to table, the gentleman remarked that the pouts were wanting.

'Oh no,' said Fleet, 'only look at my wife and daughters!'

Twenty-one years elapsed from the establishment of a newspaper in Boston, before William Bradford commenced the New York Gazette, in October, 1725. It was printed on a half sheet of foolscap, with a large and almost wornout type. There is a large volume of these papers in the New York City Library, in good preservation. The advertisements do not average more than three or four a week, and these are mostly of runaway negroes. The ship news was diminutive enough; now and then a ship, and some half a dozen sloops arriving and leaving in the course of the week. Such was the daily paper published in the commercial metropolis of the United States, one hundred and thirty-eight years ago!

Eight years after the establishment of Bradford's Gazette, the New York Weekly Journal was commenced by John Philip Zengar. This paper was established for the purpose of opposing the colonial administration of Governor Crosby, under the patronage, as was supposed, of the Honorable Rip Van Dam, who had previously discharged the duties of the executive office, as President of the Council. The first great libel suit tried in New York was instituted by the Government in 1734 against Zengar. He was imprisoned by virtue of a warrant from the Governor and Council; and a concurrence of the House of Representatives in the prosecution was requested. The House, however, declined. The Governor and Council then ordered the libellous papers to be burned by the common hangman, or whipper, near the pillory. But both the common whipper and the common hangman were officers of the corporation, not of the Crown, and they declined officiating at the illumination. The papers were therefore burned by the sheriff's deputy at the order of the Governor. An ineffectual attempt was next made to procure an indictment against Zengar, but the grand jury refused to find a bill. The Attorney-General was then directed to file no information against him for printing the libels, and he was kept in prison until another term. His counsel offered exceptions to the commissions of the judges, which the latter not only refused to hear, but excluded his counsel, Messrs. Smith and Alexander, from the bar. Zengar then obtained other counsel – John Chambers, of New York, and Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia. The trial at length came on, and excited great interest. The truth, under the old English law of libel, could never be given in evidence, and was of course excluded on the present trial. Hamilton nevertheless tried the case with great ability. He showed the jury that they were the judges as well of the law as of the fact, and Zengar was acquitted. The verdict was received with cheers by the audience; and the corporation voted the freedom of the city to Andrew Hamilton, 'for the remarkable service done to the inhabitants of this city and colony, by his defence of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the press.' The certificate was sent to Mr. Hamilton by Mr. Stephen Bayard in a superb gold box, on the lid of which were engraved the arms of the city with several classical and appropriate mottoes.

Thus ever has power been arrayed against the liberty of the press; and thus ever have the people been ready to sustain it.

Soon after the relinquishment of his paper by Bradford, it was resumed by James Parker, under the double title of The New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy. In 1753, ten years afterward, Parker took a partner by the name of William Wayman. But neither of the partners, nor both of them together, possessed the indomitable spirit of John Philip Zengar. Having in March, 1756, published an article reflecting upon the conduct of the people of Ulster and Orange counties, the Assembly, entertaining a high regard for the majesty of the people, took offence thereat, and both the editors were taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. What the precise nature of the insult upon the sovereign people of those counties was, does not appear. But the editors behaved in a craven manner. They acknowledged their fault, begged pardon of the House, and paid the costs of the proceedings; in addition to all which, they gave up the name of the author. He proved to be none other than the Rev. Hezekiah Watkins, a missionary to the county of Ulster, residing at Newburgh. The reverend gentleman was accordingly arrested, brought to New York, and voted guilty of a high misdemeanor and contempt of the authority of the House. Of what persuasion was this Mr. Watkins, does not appear. But neither Luther, nor Calvin, nor Hugh Latimer would have betrayed the right of free discussion as he did, by begging the pardon of the House, standing to receive a reprimand, paying the fees, and promising to be more circumspect in future, for the purpose of obtaining his discharge.

This case affords the most singular instance of the exercise of the doubtful power of punishing for what are called contempts, on record. A court has unquestionably a right to protect itself from indignity, while in session; and so has a legislative body, although the power of punishing for such an offence, without trial by jury, is now gravely questioned. But for a legislative body to extend the mantle of its protection over its constituency in such a matter, is an exercise of power of which it is difficult to find a parallel. Sure it is that a people, then or now, who would elect such members to the Legislature deserve nothing else than contempt.

The fourth paper established in New York was called the Evening Post. It was commenced by Henry De Forest in 1746. It was remarkable chiefly for stupidity, looseness of grammar, and worse orthography, and died before it was able to go alone.

In 1752 the New York Mercury was commenced, and in 1763 the title was changed to the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury. This paper was established and published by Hugh Gaine, at the sign of the Bible and Crown, Hanover square. It was conducted with taste and ability, and became the best newspaper in the Colonies. In 1763, Gaine was arraigned by the Assembly for publishing a part of its proceedings without permission, and withal incorrectly. He was a gentleman of a kind spirit, and never had the power to withhold an apology when it was asked. He accordingly apologized, was reprimanded, and discharged.

As the storm of war drew on in 1775, the Mercury contained a series of patriotic papers, under the signature of the Watch Tower. But as the British forces drew near to New York, the patriotism of Gaine began to cool; and during the whole course of the Revolutionary war, his Mercury afforded very accurate indications of the state of the contest. When with the Whigs, Hugh Gaine was a Whig. When with the Royalists, he was loyal. When the contest was doubtful, equally doubtful were the politics of Hugh Gaine. In short, he was the most perfect pattern of the genuine non-committal. On the arrival of the British army he removed to Newark for a while; but soon returned to the city and published a paper devoted to the cause of the Crown. His course was a fruitful theme for the wags of the day; and at the peace, a poetical petition from Gaine to the Senate of the State, setting forth his life and conduct, was got up with a good deal of talent and humor. His paper ceased with the war.

Another paper, called the New York Gazette, was commenced by Wayman, the former associate of Parker. In 1766, Wayman was arrested for a contempt of the Assembly, upon no other charge than that of two typographical errors in printing the speech of Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of the Colony. One of these errors consisted in printing the word NEVER for ever; and the other was the omission of the word NO, by reason of which the meaning of the sentence was reversed. Wayman protested that it was a mere inadvertency; but so tenacious were legislators in those days of 'privilege,' that an investigation was instituted; but in the end the transgressor was discharged from 'durance vile,' on condition of acknowledging his fault, asking pardon, and promising to behave more circumspectly for the future.

The Assembly, however, was more rigid in this case, from the suspicion entertained that one of the errors was intentional; but such was clearly not the fact.

Nothing can be more annoying to authors and publishers than errors of the press; and yet those who are unskilled in the art of printing, can scarcely conceive the difficulty of avoiding them. The art of proof reading with perfect accuracy is an high and difficult attainment. To arrive at ordinary accuracy in a daily newspaper, requires the reading and correction of at least two proofs; and even then an editor, who has not become case hardened, by long practice and long endurance, will often be shocked at the transformation of sense into nonsense, or the murdering of one of his happiest conceits, or the plucking of the point out of one of his neatest paragraphs, by a typographical error.

In the early stages of the art of printing, typographical errors were far more numerous than in books of modern execution, where there is a real effort to attain to ordinary accuracy. It was then very common for a volume of ordinary size to contain page upon page of errata at the close. One of the most remarkable instances of this kind was the curious treatise of Edward Leigh, 'On Religion and Learning,' published in 1656. At the close of the work were two folio pages of corrections in very minute characters. The author himself complains as follows: 'We have no Plantier or Stevens (two celebrated printers of another day) amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for another; words joined, which should be severed; words misplaced, chronological mistakes, &c.'

Leigh's case, however, was not so hard as that of a monk, who wrote and published the 'Anatomy of the Mass,' in 1561. The work itself contained only one hundred and seventy-two pages, to which were added FIFTEEN pages of errata. The pious monk wrote an apology for these inaccuracies, which, if true, proved that his case was indeed a cruel one – clearly proving, moreover, that even if the devil had originally assisted Doctor Faustus and Gutenberg in the invention, his brimstone majesty very soon became sick of his bargain. The monk avers that he wrote the work to circumvent the artifices of Satan, and that the devil, ever on the alert, undertook to circumvent him. For this purpose Satan, in the first place, caused the MS. to be drenched in a kennel, until it was rendered comparatively illegible; and, in the second place, he compelled the printers to perpetrate more typographical blunders than had ever before been made in a book of no greater magnitude. But the malice of Lucifer did not end here. He compelled the priest to act under his influence while making the corrections!

But they were not all unintentional errors of the press in those days that appeared such. There were words and phrases interdicted by the Pope and the Inquisition; and sometimes by adroit management the interdicted word, though not inserted in the text, could be arrived at in the table of errata.

It is a singular fact, that the edition of the Latin Vulgate, by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, although his Holiness carefully superintended every sheet as it passed through the press, has ever remained without a rival in typographical inaccuracy. Still more curious was the fact, that the Pope, in the plenitude of pontifical infallibility, prefixed to the first volume a bull of excommunication against any and every printer, who in reprinting the work, should ever make any alteration in the text. To the amazement of the public, however, when the Bible appeared, it swarmed with errors too numerous for an errata. In a multitude of instances it was necessary to reprint whole passages in scraps, and paste over the incorrect verses. Great efforts were made to call in the edition; and it is now only to be found among rare collections, as a monument of literary blunders. If the Devil ever troubles himself about the correction of proofsheets, he was much more likely to be standing at the Pope's elbow while the Bible was printing, than to be bothering his head in regard to the poor monk's mass book to which allusion has been made.

Typographical errors happen in a variety of ways; sometimes by carelessness, sometimes by the ignorance and stupidity of the printer, and sometimes by design. Occurring in either way, they are often ludicrous, and sometimes productive of positive evil. A few examples of each variety will suffice.

In the fine description of the Pantheon, by Akenside, the expressive phrase 'SEVERELY great,' not being understood by the printer, who undertook to think for himself, was printed 'serenely great.'

An edition of the Bible was once published in England, in which the word not was omitted in the seventh commandment. For this offence, whether by carelessness or by design, the archbishop imposed the heaviest penalty ever recorded in the annals of literary history. The edition was required to be called in and destroyed, and a fine imposed of £20,000 sterling.

There was a more severe punishment than even this awarded in Germany once, for a wilful alteration of the sacred text. It seems that in Gen. iii. 16, the Hebrew word which has been rendered husband in the English translation, is lord in the German. It is the passage in which God tells Eve: 'And thy desire shall be to thy husband, who shall rule over thee.' The German word signifying lord is HERR; and in the same language the word NARR answers for fool. The case was this: A new edition of the Bible was printing at the house of a widow, whose husband had been a printer. The spirited lady, not liking the subordinate station of her sex, and having acquired a little knowledge of the art, watched an opportunity by night to enter the printing office; and while the form was lying on the press, she carefully drew out the letters H and e, and inserted in their stead the letters Na. The outrage was not discovered in season, and the Bible went forth declaring that man should be the woman's fool. Such, probably, is too often the case, but the gentlemen would not like to see it in print. Gravely, however, the person committing such an offence must needs stand in awful apprehension of the fearful curse denounced in the conclusion of the Apocalypse.

An edition of the Catholic Missal was once published in France, in which the accidental substitution merely of the letter u for an a, was the cause of a shocking blunder, changing, as it did, the word calotte (an ecclesiastical cap or mitre) into culotte, which, as my readers are aware, means, in drawing-room English, a gentleman's small clothes. The error occurred in one of the directions for conducting the service, where it is said: "Here the priest will take off his culotte!"

Among the errors that have occurred through design, was one which happened in the old Hudson Balance, when the Rev. Dr. Croswell was the editor of that ancient and excellent journal. A merchant by the name of Peter Cole chanced to get married. Cole, however, was very unpopular, and was not one of the brightest intelligences even of those days. The bride, too, was a little more no than yes, in her intellectual furnishment. It used to be a common practice in the country, in sending marriages to the press, to tack on a bit of poetry in the shape of some sweet hymenial sentimentality. In compliance with this custom, the groomsman added a line or two from one of the poets, where the bard speaks of the bliss of the marriage state, 'when heart meets heart reciprocally soft.' The wicked boys in the printing office, however, corrected the poet, making the stanza read thus:

'When head meets head, reciprocally soft.'

Another instance, more ludicrous still, was the following: A lad in a printing office, who knew more about type setting than he did of the Greek mythology, in looking over a poem they were printing, came upon the name of Hecate, one of the lady divinities of the lower world, occurring in a line like this:

'Shall reign the Hecate of the deepest hell.'

The boy, thinking he had discovered an error, ran to the master printer, and inquired eagerly whether there was an e in cat. 'Why, no, you blockhead,' was the reply. Away went the boy to the press room, and extracted the objectionable letter. But fancy the horror of both poet and publisher, when the poem appeared with the line:

'Shall reign the He cat of the deepest hell.'

But let a form of types, arranged either for book or newspaper, be ever so correct when sent to the press, errors not unfrequently happen from yet another cause, viz.: the liability of now and then a letter to drop out, when the form has not been properly adjusted, or locked sufficiently tight in the iron frame which by printers is called a chase. How important the loss of a single letter may become is seen by the following example. A printer putting to press a form of the Common Prayer, the c in the following passage dropped out unperceived by him: 'We shall all be CHANGED in the twinkling of an eye.' When the book appeared, to the horror of the devout worshipper, the passage read: 'We shall all be HANGED in the twinkling of an eye.'

Sometimes a whole page or a whole form drops through, and falls into what printers call pi– that is, a mass of all sorts of letters, stops, marks, points, spaces, forming a jumble of everything – and involving the dire necessity of assorting over the whole mass, letter by letter. In isolated printing houses, where they have but few workmen, and assistance is not near, such a catastrophe is a serious matter. An instance of this kind, which happened many years ago in the county of Oneida, is in point. An editor was putting his paper to press (for in the country, editor and printer are often combined) when down fell his form – a wreck of matter and a crush of words. There was no other printing office nearer than Albany, and it was impossible for him to rearrange his types for the paper that week. But his paper must come out at all hazards, on account of the legal advertisements on the first side. He therefore hit upon the expedient of publishing his paper with a blank page, inserting in large letters, 'Omitted for want of room!'

But, after all, when it is considered of how many separate and minute pieces of metal a book form or the page of a newspaper is composed, the wonder is that errors of the press are not far more numerous than they are. A single page of one of our largest papers cannot contain less than 150,000 separate pieces of metal, each of which must be nicely adjusted in its own proper place, or error and confusion will ensue.

But to return from this long digression of the early newspaper press of New York. A paper called the New York Chronicle was published during the years 1761-'62, and then died. The New York Pacquet was next published, in 1763, but how long it lived is not known. In 1766, Holt established the New York Journal, or General Advertiser, which in the course of the year was connected with Parker's Gazette, the Journal, however, being printed as a separate paper. John Holt edited the first Whig paper published in New York; nor, as in the case of Hugh Gaine, did his patriotism come and go as danger approached or receded from the city. In 1774, Holt discarded the King's arms, and took that engraving from the title of his paper, substituting in place of it, a serpent cut in pieces, with the expressive motto, 'Unite or Die.' In January, 1775, the snake was united and coiled, with the tail in its mouth, forming a double ring: within the coil was a pillar standing on Magna Charta and surmounted with the cap of liberty: the pillar on each side was supported by six arms and hands, figurative of the colonies. On the body of the snake, beginning at the head, were the following lines:

'United now, alive and free,
Firm on this basis Liberty shall stand;
And thus supported, ever bless our land,
Till Time becomes Eternity.'

The designs both of 1774 and 1775 were excellent – the first, by a visible illustration, showing the disjointed state of the colonies; and the second presenting an emblem of their strength when united. Holt maintained his integrity to the last. When the British troops took possession of New York, he removed to Esopus, now Kingston, and revived his paper. On the burning of that village by the enemy in 1777, he removed to Poughkeepsie, and published the Journal there until the peace of 1783, when he returned to New York and resumed his paper under the title of The Independent Gazette; or, The New York Journal Revived. Holt was an unflinching patriot, but did not long survive the achievement of his country's freedom. In 1784 he gave his paper a new typographical dress, and commenced publishing it twice a week, being the second paper thus frequently published in the United States. He died, however, early in that year. The Journal was continued for a time by the widow; but after undergoing several changes of name and proprietorship, it passed into the hands of Francis Greenleaf in 1787, by whom it was converted into a daily paper, called the Argus, or Greenleaf's New Daily Advertiser. A semi-weekly paper was also published by Greenleaf, called the New York Journal and Patriotic Register. Mr. Greenleaf was a practical printer and an estimable and enterprising man. He fell a victim to the yellow fever in 1798. The paper was continued by his widow for a little while, but ultimately fell into the hands of that celebrated political gladiator, James Cheetham.

The Independent Reflector was a paper commenced by James Parker in 1752, and continued for two years. Among its contributors were Governor Livingston, the Rev. Aaron Burr (father of the distinguished and unhappy statesman of that name), William Alexander (afterward Lord Stirling), and William Smith, the historian of New York. The tone of the paper was unsuited to the ears of the men in power: it was free and fearless in its discussions; and means were found to silence it. The belief was that Parker was suborned to refuse longer to publish it.

The celebrated James Rivington began his paper, under the formidable title of Rivington's New York Gazette; or, The Connecticut, New Jersey, Hudson's River, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser, in 1733. The imprint read as follows: 'Printed at his ever open and uninfluenced press, fronting Hanover Square.' It is well known that Rivington was the royal printer during the whole of the Revolutionary War; and it is amusing to trace the degrees by which his toryism manifested itself as the storm gathered over the country. The title of the paper originally contained a cut of a large ship under sail. In 1774, the ship sailed out of sight, and the King's arms appeared in its place; and in 1775 the words ever open and uninfluenced were withdrawn from the imprint. These symptoms were disliked by the patriots of the country, and in November, 1775, a party of armed men from Connecticut entered the city on horseback, beset his habitation, broke into his printing office, destroyed his presses, and threw his types into pi. They then carried them away, melted, and cast them into bullets. Rivington's paper was now effectually stopped – 'omitted for want of room' – until the British army took possession of the city. Rivington himself meantime had been to England, where he procured a new printing apparatus, and returning, established 'The New York Royal Gazette, published by James Rivington, printer to the King's most excellent Majesty.' During the remaining five years of the war, Rivington's paper was the most distinguished for its lies, and its loyalty, of any other journal in America. It was published twice a week; and four other newspapers were published in New York, at the same time, under the sanction of the British officers – one arranged for each day, so that, in fact, they had the advantages of a daily paper. It has been said, and believed, that Rivington, after all, was a secret traitor to the crown, and, in fact, the secret informant of Washington. Be this, however, as it may, as the war drew to a close, and the prospects of the King's arms began to darken, Rivington's loyalty began to cool down; and by 1787 the King's arms had disappeared and the title of the paper, no more the Royal Gazette, was simply Rivington's New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser. But although he labored to play the republican, he was distrusted by the people, and his paper was relinquished in the course of that year.

In 1775, Samuel Loudon commenced his New York Pacquet and American Advertiser. When New York fell into the hands of the enemy, Loudon removed to Fishkill, and published his paper there. At the close of the war he returned to the city, and began a daily paper, which was continued many years.

We have thus sketched the history of printing, and of the newspaper press in Boston and New York, from the introduction of the art, down to the period of the Revolution. From these brief sketches, an idea may be formed of the germ of the newspaper press which is now one of the chief glories of our country. The public press of no other country equals that of the United States, either on the score of its moral or its intellectual power, or for the exertion of that manly independence of thought and action, which ought to characterize the press of a free people. What a prophet would the great wizard novelist of Scotland have been, had the prediction which he put into the mouth of Galeotti Martivalle, the astrologer of Louis the Eleventh, in the romance of Quentin Durward, been written at the period of its date! Louis, who has justly been held as the Tiberius of France, is represented as paying a visit to the mystic workshop of the astrologer, whom his Majesty discovered to be engaged in the then newly invented art of multiplying manuscripts by the intervention of machinery – in other words, the apparatus of printing.

'Can things of such mechanical and terrestrial import,' inquired the king, 'interest the thoughts of one before whom Heaven has unrolled her own celestial volumes?'

'My brother,' replied the astrologer, 'believe me, that in considering the consequences of this invention, I read with as certain augury, as by any combination of the heavenly bodies, the most awful and portentous changes. When I reflect with what slow and limited supplies the stream of science hath hitherto descended to us; how difficult to be obtained by those most ardent in its search; how certain to be neglected by all who love their ease; how liable to be diverted or altogether dried up, by the invasions of barbarisms; can I look forward without wonder and astonishment, to the lot of a succeeding generation, on whom knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded; fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life; establishing and overthrowing religions; erecting and destroying kingdoms – '

'Hold, hold, Galeotti,' cried the king, 'shall these changes come in our time?'

'No, my royal brother,' replied Martivalle; 'this invention may be likened to a young tree, which is now newly planted, but shall, in succeeding generations, bear fruit as fatal, yet as precious, as that of the Garden of Eden; the knowledge, namely, of good and evil.'

RECONNOISSANCE NEAR FORT MORGAN,

AND

EXPEDITION IN LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN AND PEARL RIVER, BY THE MORTAR FLOTILLA OF CAPTAIN D. D. PORTER, U. S. N

In a former article, on the surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, which appeared in the May number of The Continental Monthly, allusion was made to the efficiency of the mortar flotilla, to which the Coast Survey party, under charge of Assistant F. H. Gerdes, was attached, by special direction of Flag-officer D. G. Farragut. This party rendered hydrographic and also naval service, where such was required, their steamer, the Sachem, being used by the commander of the flotilla like any other vessel under his command. Captain Porter, in his letters to the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, writes, under date of April 29, 1862: "Mr. Gerdes no doubt has written to you and sent you plans. I keep him pretty hard at work. The times require it," &c.