March 13

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Providence Gazette (March 13, 1773).

“EXcellent Bohea Tea, which for Smell and Flavour exceeds almost any ever imported.”

Joseph Russell and William Russell ranked among the most prominent merchants in Providence in the early 1770s.  Their mercantile success allowed them to construct an impressive Georgian house in 1772, a landmark still standing in the city and the contents on display in museums.  The size of the house testified to the Russells’ wealth, while the style, including “an original principal entrance taken from the English architectural pattern book Builder’s Compleat Assistant (1750) by Battey Langley,” communicated their genteel tastes.  The massive house enhanced their visibility within the cityscape of the growing town, while their frequent advertisements in the Providence Gazette enhanced their visibility among readers of the public prints in town and beyond.  On occasion, they published full-page advertisements that accounted for one-quarter of the space in a standard four-page newspaper of the period.

Most of their advertisements were not that elaborate, yet the Russells still attempted to entice prospective customers with promises of some of the luxuries that they enjoyed.  Consider a notice from the March 13, 1773, edition of the Providence Gazette.  The merchants listed a variety of items available at the Sign of the Golden Eagle, a store so well known that the Russells did not consider necessary to name it in every advertisement.  Their inventory included “a few Quarter Casks of best Lisbon Wine,” coffee, chocolate, and imported “English and Hard Ware Goods.”  They did not provide additional details about those items, but they did open their advertisement by promoting “EXcellent Bohea Tea, which for Smell and Flavour exceeds almost any ever imported.”  The Russells did more than encourage prospective customers to imagine purchasing the tea; they encouraged them to imagine consuming the tea, to take into account the sensual pleasures of the smell and the taste.  The merchants presented an opportunity for consumers to treat themselves to a small luxury, one that was not reserved solely for the better sorts, hoping that would help to sell their tea.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 13, 1773

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Providence Gazette (March 13, 1773).

March 12

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-Hampshire Gazette (March 12, 1773).

“He will teach Dancing in the politest Manner.”

Monsieur de Viart had competition for pupils at his dancing academy in Portsmouth.  The week after Viart commenced a new round of advertising in the New-Hampshire Gazette, Edward Hacket placed his own notice “to acquaint the GENTLEMEN and LADIES” that he would “open a Dancing-School, At the New ASSEMBLY HOUSE” in April.  Although dated February 11, that was likely a mistake.  Hacket’s advertisement did not appear in the New-Hampshire Gazette until March 12.  By then, Viart had taken the lead in advertising for the upcoming quarter in the public prints.

That did not deter Hacket from attempting to convince adults to take lessons from him and parents to enroll their children in his school.  For background, he described himself as “From EUROPE,” but did not go into greater detail.  He apparently hoped that his origins on the other side of the Atlantic gave him some cachet compared to dancing masters from the colonies … and made him competitive with his French rival, Monsieur de Viart.  Hacket did not believe that Viart was entitled to corner the market in Portsmouth.  According to his advertisement, neither did “many of the principal Inhabitants of the Town” who requested that he establish his own school even though Viart already operated a dancing academy there.  To further burnish his credentials, Hacket declared that he “has taught Dancing in many of the principal Towns in England, Ireland, and America.”  That being the case, he taught students how to dance “in the politest manner” and could assist them in learning “perfectly in a short Time,” preparing his pupils “for any Assembly or Company whatsoever.”

Just as participation in the consumer revolution was not restricted to the gentry in the largest colonial cities, neither was adopting the manners and skills associated with gentility.  As spring approached in 1773, two dancing masters offered their services in Portsmouth, Hampshire.  Each operated schools in that town and also offered private instruction in the homes of their pupils.  Hacket indicated that he also gave lessons in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Haverhill and Newbury, Massachusetts.  Prospective pupils in town and country alike, the dancing masters suggested, should consider how learning to dance well would secure and enhance their status.

March 11

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Massachusetts Spy (March 11, 1773).

“American Ink-Powder.”

Buy American!  That was the message that many advertisers presented to consumers during the imperial crisis, before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord.  It was the message that Samuel Norton of Hingham, who made ink powder, and Ann Norton of Boston, his broker in town, proclaimed to prospective customers in the March 11, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Spy.  Other advertisers made similar appeals, including Abraham Cornish for his “New England COD and MACKEREL FISH HOOKS.”

For their part, the Nortons introduced their product with a headline for “American Ink-Powder” followed immediately by a secondary headline that declared, “Experienced and found to be equal, if not superior to any imported.”  Earlier in the week, Henry William Stiegel made similar assertions about the glassware he made in Manheim, Pennsylvania.  To entice colonizers to try the ink powder made in Hingham, the Nortons listed several of its “excellent qualities.”  They claimed that even when documents written with the ink were “exposed to extreme wet” the ink did not run; instead, it “alters not, but will remain as long as the paper endures.”  Furthermore, the ink powder contained an ingredient that “precents ink from becoming think and mouldy.”  These factors prompted the Nortons to proclaim that this ink powder “makes the best black writing-ink,” doubling down on the secondary headline about it being as good as, or even better than, imported alternatives.

The Nortons also offered practical advice for using the ink powder.  They considered it “very convenient for gentlemen, merchants, attornies and others that travel, it being not cumbersome and liable to those mischances that other ink is.”  Purchasers could choose to mix ink “in large or small quantities, as is most convenient,” and did not have to worry about it freezing if they used “a little brandy or other spirits not liable to freeze” instead of water.  In guiding prospective customers in how to use the product, the Nortons hoped to increase the chances that some of them would purchase their ink powder and follow their directions.

They also benefited from the compositor’s choice about where to place their advertisement within that issue of the Massachusetts Spy.  It appeared immediately below coverage of the annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre. Residents of Boston marked the third anniversary with an oration “on the dangerous tendency of standing armies being placed in free and populous cities” by Dr. Benjamin Church, a lantern with paintings that depicted soldiers firing on colonizers, and the tolling of bells.  The Nortons did not make arguments about consumers’ civic responsibility to practice politics in the marketplace by purchasing domestic manufactures, goods produced in the colonies, as explicitly as some other advertisers.  Given the commemoration of the Boston Massacre that just occurred and other news about current events that crowded the pages of the Massachusetts Spy, they did not necessarily need to do so.  Prospective customers very well understood the context in which the Norton’s hawked their “American Ink-Powder.”

Slavery Advertisements Published March 11, 1773

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Supplement to the Maryland Gazette (March 11, 1773).

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Supplement to the Maryland Gazette (March 11, 1773).

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Massachusetts-Gazette Extraordinary (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

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Virginia Gazette [Rind] (March 11, 1773).

March 10

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Journal (March 10, 1773).

“Made it their particular study to encourage their own manufactures.”

Today, collectors consider precious glassware produced in the eighteenth century by Henry William Stiegel at his American Flint Glass Manufactory, but during his own lifetime the German-American glassmaker did not achieve the same renown.  Like many other artisans, he published newspaper advertisements in an effort to entice consumers and improve his prospects.

In many of those advertisements, Stiegel attempted to convince prospective customers to support “domestic manufactures” by purchasing goods produced in the colonies, especially glassware he made at his manufactory in Manheim in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, rather than imported alternatives.  Artisans and others launched “Buy American” campaigns during the imperial crisis, suggesting to colonizers that they had a civic responsibility to practice politics through the decisions they made in the marketplace.  In an advertisement in the March 10, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal, Stiegel and his broker in Philadelphia, William Smith, made the case that the “friends and well-wishers to America have, on all laudable occasions, shewed a spirit of patriotism worthy of themselves, and made it their particular study to encourage their own manufactures in preference to all others.”  Stiegel and Smith reiterated an appeal that Stiegel made in another advertisement in November 1771.

The glassmaker and his broker challenged consumers to take part in “so noble a resolution” to purchase “their own manufactures,” yet that was not the extent of their sales pitch.  They also emphasized price, stating that they sold glassware “on as good terms” as imported goods, and quality, asserting that the “ELEGANT ASSORTMENT” of items was “as neat in their kinds” as “any imported from Europe.”  Prospective customers did not have to take their word for it.  Instead, Stiegel and Smith confidently asserted that if “impartial judges” inspected works from the American Flint Glass Manufactory that they would reach the same conclusion.

Stiegel and Smith presented decisions about consumption as political acts, yet they recognized that politics alone would not motivate some consumers, especially during a lull in tensions between colonizers and Parliament.  That being the case, they assured prospective customers that when they purchased glassware produced by Stiegel that they acquired merchandise equal in quality to items imported from Europe and at the same prices.  They hoped that the combination of appeals would convince consumers to support “their own manufactories” in the colonies.

March 9

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Essex Gazette (March 9, 1773).

“Rendered conspicuous by an elegant Sign of KING GEORGE THE THIRD.”

In March 1773, Abraham Safford took to the pages of the Essex Gazette to inform the public that he recently opened a tavern in a “commodious House” in Salem.  He pledged that “Gentlemen and Ladies may be entertained in the best Manner, and on the most reasonable Terms.”  To aid patrons in making their way to his new establishment, Safford advised that it was “rendered conspicuous by an elegant Sign of KING GEORGE THE THIRD.”  In another advertisement in the Essex Gazette, Stephen Higginson gave his location as the “Shop opposite the King’s Arms Tavern, in SALEM.”  Both advertisements appeared in the same issue that reprinted a lengthy account of commemorations that took place in Boston on the third anniversary of the “horrid Massacre perpetrated by a Party of the 29th Regiment,” including an oration on the danger of standing armies in cities by Dr. Benjamin Church, the lighting of a lantern with panes painted to depict the Boston Massacre, and the tolling of bells.

How did Safford happen to choose the “Sign of KING GEORGE THE THIRD” to mark his location and represent his business?  Why did the proprietor of the King’s Arms Tavern continue to use that device?  Did deploying those images suggest loyalist sympathies?  Would colonizers who considered themselves patriots hesitate or even refuse to gather at those taverns?  Not necessarily.  As the imperial crisis unfolded, colonizers tended to critique Parliament and the soldiers that Parliament stationed in American cities while simultaneously embracing their British identity and the benefits of being part of such a powerful empire.  That identify included participating in a transatlantic consumer revolution and adopting fashions popular in London.  Many looked to the king to correct the excesses of Parliament, such as the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts.  As late as July 1775, the Second Continental Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to George III in hopes of avoiding war, though by that time John Adams and others considered it a futile gesture.  The king rejected the petition, demonstrating to colonizers that he had little interest in addressing their grievances.  In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a political pamphlet that advocated for independence.  His arguments included critiques “Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession.”

Colonizers eventually identified George III as responsible for the problems within the empire, but they did not do so throughout the imperial crisis.  Instead, shifting blame from Parliament to the king was a process that occurred over a decade.  That Safford opened a tavern at the “Sign of KING GEORGE THE THIRD” in 1773 may have been a signal that he hoped the monarch would protect the liberties of the colonizers against the abuses perpetrated by Parliament, not necessarily an indication that the proprietor (or his patrons) supported loyalists over patriots.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 9, 1773

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 9, 1773).

March 8

What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

“Will be celebrated the ANNIVERSART OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP-ACT.”

It was an annual event.  Patriots in New York gathered to celebrate the “ANNIVERSARY OF THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT.”  Newspaper notices summoned them, including in 1770, 1771, 1772, and, once again 1773.  At that time, seven years had passed since colonial resistance contributed to Parliament’s decision to repeal the legislation, while simultaneously passing the Declaratory Act to save face.  Patriots gathered each year to commemorate their victory, encourage further vigilance, and call on others to make common cause with them.  The notice in the March 8, 1773, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury invited “those Gentlemen … who associated [at Abraham de la Montaigne’s tavern] last Year” as well as “their Friends” to join the festivities.  Occasionally, advertisements in newspapers published in other cities also promoted similar commemorations.  In 1771, for instance, a notice in the Boston-Gazette informed the public that “The Feast of ST. PATRICK is to be celebrated, together with the Repeal of the STAMP-ACT … at the Green Dragon.”

In addition to commemorating that triumph over oppressive legislation, colonizers also marked the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.  On March 8, 1773, the same day that the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury carried the notice about the upcoming dinner to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Boston Evening-Post reported that on “the Anniversary of the 5th of March,” the day that British soldiers fired into a crown and “barbarously murdered” several colonizers in 1770, the committee that organized the commemoration the previous year “engaged Dr. BENJAMIN CHURCH, to deliver an ORATION, on the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies being placed in free and populous Cities, and to perpetuate the Memory of the horrid Massacre.”  Church delivered the address “at the Old South Meeting, where the people crowded in such Numbers, that it was with Difficulty the Orator reached the Pulpit.”  According to the article, Church’s “Fellow Citizens … requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  In the coming weeks, readers would encounter advertisements for the address.

In the evening, a “Select Number of the Friends of Constitutional Liberty” displayed a lantern with a pane painted with “a lively Representation of the bloody Massacre” perpetrated three years earlier.  When lit, the lantern cast eerie shadows depicting the event near the spot where it occurred.  The side panels included other images; on the right, a personification of America, “sitting in as Mourning Posture, looking down and the Spectators,” and, on the left, a “Monument, sacred to the Memory” of the victims.  The organizers extinguished the lantern at “a Quarter after Nine, the Time of the Evening when the bloody Scene was acted.”  Then, “most of the Bells in Town toll’d till Ten.”  The Boston-Gazette carried similar coverage the same day, as did the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy in their next issues on March 11.  Residents of Boston would have been familiar with these commemorations before they appeared in the newspapers.  The printers published the accounts to inform readers in other towns and for printers in other cities to reprint and disseminate to even greater numbers of colonizers.  The Essex Gazette, published in Salem, reprinted the account on March 9, the day after it first appeared in the Boston-Gazette.

Commemorations of the events that resulted in thirteen colonies declaring independence began before the fighting started at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  As acts of resistance, colonizers marked significant events associated with the American Revolution even before they knew that the outcome would indeed be a revolution.  Such commemorations may have helped convince some colonizers of the merits of separating from Great Britain.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 8, 1773

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston Evening-Post (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the Boston Evening-Post (March 8, 1773).

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Boston-Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Newport Mercury (March 8, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 8, 1773).

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Pennsylvania Chronicle (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (March 8, 1773).