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

“The Manual Exercise, recommended to be practised by the above Resolve of the Congress.”

The placement of advertisements varied in colonial newspapers.  Many printers reserved them for the final pages, while others positioned them on the first and last pages with news on the middle pages.  Sometimes advertisements and news appeared on the same page, such as two columns of news and one column of advertising on the front page or advertisements completing a column of news on any page.  Even with those variations, advertisements and news typically did not alternate within the columns on any page of early American newspapers.

That made an advertisement on the third page of the October 31, 1774, edition of the Boston Evening-Post both unusual and notable.  The first column bore the headline “In PROVINCIAL CONGRESS” and commenced with “A true Extract from the Minutes” of a meeting held on October 26.  The same headline, in smaller font, occurred three more times in the first and second columns, reporting on meetings held on October 28 and 29.  The last of those featured a short resolution: “That it be recommended to the Inhabitants of this Province, that in Order to their perfecting themselves in the Military Art, they proceed in the Method ordered by his Majesty in the Year 1764; it being in the Opinion of this Congress, the best calculated for Appearance and Defence.”  That recommendation came as Boston and the rest of the colony reacted to the Quartering Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the other Coercive Acts that Parliament passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.

A brief advertisement immediately followed the resolution: “The Manual Exercise, recommended to be practised by the above Resolve of the Congress, is to be had only of T. and J. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill, Boston.”  The column returned to news, that lone advertisement embedded between articles.  The Fleets happened to be the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, known for their support of the patriot cause.  They likely had dual purposes in running the advertisement and selecting where to place it.  Supplying the public with a military manual reflected their political principles, yet as entrepreneurs the Fleets also stood to generate revenue from its sale.  They served the public good, both in printing the manual and the proximity of their advertisement to the resolution, while also attempting to increase sales in their printing office.  Scholars have debated whether printers who sold political tracts during the era of the American Revolution merely seized an opportunity to line their pockets, yet participating in politics and earning their livelihoods were not necessarily mutually exclusive endeavors.