Boston Evening-Post

April 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (April 24, 1775).

“They shall desist publishing their Papers after this Day, till Matters are in a more settled State.”

The printers and the public did not know it yet, but the April 24, 1775, edition of the Boston Evening-Post would be the last issue of that newspaper.  Thomas Fleet established the newspaper in August 1735.  His sons, Thomas and John, continued publishing the Boston Evening-Post after their father’s death in 1758.  They even disseminated issues while the Stamp Act was in effect from November 1765 through May 1766, though they did not include their names in the colophon.  The events at Lexington and Concord, however, were too much of a disruption to continue.  The Fleets initially intended to suspend the newspaper and continue publication at some point in the future.  The April 24 issue included only three advertisements, the first one from the printers to “inform the Town that they shall desist publishing their Papers after this Day, till Matters are in a more settled State.”  A newspaper that had served Boston for just shy of forty years ended with “NUMB. 2065.”

By that time, Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, had already published the final issue of that newspaper in Boston on April 6 and headed to Worcester.  He revived it as the Massachusetts Spy: Or, American Oracle of Liberty in early May.  Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks distributed the last known issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on April 17.  The April 20 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter was the last for a month.  Margaret Draper and John Boyle resumed publication of that newspaper on May 19, though they published issues sporadically for the next several months before turning the newspaper over to John Howe.  The February 29, 1776, edition may have been the last; it is the last known issue.  Benjamin Edes and John Gill suspended the Boston-Gazette with the April 17, 1775, edition.  Edes went to Watertown and resumed publication there on June 5.  He remained in Watertown until the end of October 1776.  At that time, he returned to Boston and continued publication in November. His sons became partners in 1779.  The Boston-Gazette did not close until September 1798.

At the beginning of April 1775, five newspapers served Boston, yet the beginning of the Revolutionary War in nearby Lexington and Concord on April 19 had a dramatic impact on those newspapers.  Two folded immediately, even though they hoped to resume when “Matters are in a more settled state.”  One suspended publication for a month and then limped along for less than a year.  Another relocated to Worcester and experienced success there.  Only the Boston-Gazette survived the war and resumed publication in that city.  Other newspapers eventually filled the void, commencing publication during the war, but for some time the town that long had more newspapers than any other in the colonies adapted to new circumstances that limited publication of news (and advertisements).

April 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (April 17, 1775).

“THE Massachusetts Spy … will be published … in the Town and County of Worcester.”

Isaiah Thomas published the last issue of the Massachusetts Spy in Boston on April 6, 1775.  Eleven days later, advertisements in the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy informed readers that the “Massachusetts Spy, or Thomas’s Boston Journal, will be published on Wednesday the 3d Day of May next in the Town and County of Worcester, and will be immediately forwarded to Boston.”  Why did Thomas suddenly suspend publishing the Massachusetts Spy, founded in 1770, and relocate to Worcester with plans to revive the newspaper there?

In his History of Printing in America, published in 1810, Thomas declared, “It became at length apparent to all reflecting men that hostilities must soon take place between Great Britain and her American colonies.”  Through the editorial stance he took in the Massachusetts Spy, the patriot printer “had rendered himself very obnoxious to the friends of the British administration; and, in consequence, the tories, and some of the British soldiery in the town, openly threatened him with the effects of their resentment.”  Along with other residents of Boston, Thomas had endured all sorts of “Distresses,” as he called them, following the closure of the harbor in retaliation for the destruction of the tea, but now his own safety was at stake.  “For these and other reasons, he was induced to pack up, privately, a press and types, and to send them in the night over the Charles river to Charlestown, whence they were conveyed to Worcester.”  Thomas was smart with his timing for getting out of Boston: “This was only a few days before the affair at Lexington.”[1]  The printer smuggled a press out of Boston just before the Revolutionary War began with the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord followed by the siege of Boston.

Near the end of February, the Massachusetts Spy carried subscription proposals for a “New Weekly NEWS-PAPER … To be entitled, The WORCESTER GAZETTE.”  Thomas had made arrangements with “a number of gentlemen in the county of Worcester, zealously engaged in the cause of the country … to open a printing house, and to publish a newspaper there, in the course of the ensuing spring.”  It would be the town’s first printing office and first newspaper.  Thomas planned “to send a press, with a suitable person to manage the concerns of it,” having previously gained experience setting up Henry-Walter Tinges as a junior partner who oversaw their printing office in Newburyport and printed the Essex Journal.  “The war commencing sooner than expected,” however, Thomas “was obliged to leave Boston, and came himself to Worcester, opened a printing house, and on the 3d of May, 1775, executed the first printing done in the town.”[2]

As he prepared to open that printing office, his advertisement in newspapers still published in Boston advised the public that the “Publisher [of the Massachusetts Spy] begs the continuance of the favors of his good Customers, and assures then that notwithstanding the distance to which he has removed, he shall be able to give them all that Satisfaction in his publications which they have hitherto approved.”  Furthermore, he planned to return to Boston “[a]s soon as the tranquility of this unfortunate Capital is restored,” not knowing at the time that he would remain in Worcester after the war ended.  For the moment, he designated a local agent, Alexander Thomas, who oversaw his shop in Boston and saw to the delivery of new issues of the Massachusetts Spy on Thursdays, the day after the printer published them in Worcester.  He also requested that “All Persons indebted for the Massachusetts Spy … pay their respective balances.” Like other printers, Thomas extended credit to his customers, but the “great distress [of] the unhappy state of affairs” made it necessary to call on them to make payment.”  Thomas faced a new chapter, one that the Adverts 250 Projectwill chronicle as it examines advertisements placed in revolutionary American newspapers.

**********

[1] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers (1810; New York: Weathervane Press, 1970), 168.

[2] Thomas, History of Printing, 180-181.

February 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR:  Kamryn Vasselin

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

Boston Evening-Post (February 27, 1775).

“Will be Sold … Brass and other Andirons, Feather Beds.”

This advertisement features a variety of household goods sold at an auction held by R. Gould after the death of William Greaves. What caught my eye about this advertisement was some of the items being sold, like andirons and feather beds. I was not familiar with these items before reading this advertisement.

Andirons are a pair of brass or iron bracket supports used to hold up logs in an open fireplace. Andirons allow for better burning and less smoke due to the air circulation underneath the wood. In 1775, most homes used wood-burning fireplaces to keep warm, especially during cold winters. The use of andirons was widespread during this time.

The other item that caught my eye was featherbeds. According to art historians interviewed by Sunny Sea Gold, many people slept on beds of several different layers during this time. She reports, “At the bottom was a simple, firm mattress pad or cushion filled with corn husks or horsehair. Next came a big featherbed for comfort.” We would equate these to mattresses today, just instead filled with feathers. These featherbeds often sagged and caused problems when people laid flat on them. Wealthier colonists could buy professionally made featherbeds, while those less fortunate usually made their own out of goose or duck feathers.

Goods being sold at an auction as part of an estate sale generally cost less than when bought new. For those who may have needed a pair of andirons but were unwilling or unable to spend much, seeing this advertisement would have likely drawn them to the auction to get a good deal. The same goes for the featherbed, even a used one. An opportunity to increase the comfort of their bed at a cheap price would have provoked the interest of many people.

**********

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

When I invite students to serve as guest curators for the Adverts 250 Project, I do so in hopes that they will immerse themselves in eighteenth-century life and culture in new ways.  I assign both primary sources and secondary sources for our classes, yet I want my students to examine some aspect of life in early America even more intensively.  That begins with compiling a digital archive of newspapers published during a particular week during the era of the American Revolution and continues with searching through those newspapers to select advertisements that interest them.

Seeing why different advertisements spark interest for different students is always an interesting and illustrative part of working on this project together.  I learn from my students, especially when they explain what they see in their advertisements as they work with early American newspapers for the first time compared to the assumptions that I make after reading those newspapers for years.  I appreciate how Kamryn took an advertisement that would have appeared plain and ordinary to eighteenth-century readers familiar with the material culture of the period and demonstrated that some of the everyday items that colonizers purchased and used are no longer everyday items in the twenty-first century.  As a result, they require some explanation to understand their purpose and significance in the eighteenth century.

I also appreciate that Kamryn commented on auctions as the way that consumers sometimes acquired those objects of everyday life.  R. Gould, one of several auctioneers in Boston, oversaw an estate sale at the home of William Greaves.  The advertisement for that auction appeared between notices for upcoming sales at “RUSSELL’s Auction Room in Queen street” and William Hunter’s “New Auction-Room, Dock-Square.”  Some of the items for sale at “Hunter’sAuction-Room” were certainly secondhand goods, like at the estate sale, being the “Property of a Gentleman leaving the Province,” yet others, as far as the advertisements revealed, were new.  As Kamryn notes, auctions offered bargains to consumers, whether they purchased new or used goods.

January 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (January 16, 1775).

“Those noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country, who have signed the League and Covenant.”

The decorative border around Cyrus Baldwin’s advertisement in the January 16, 1775, edition of the Boston Evening-Postdrew attention to it … and the shopkeeper wanted the entire community to see what he had to say about the “great Variety of English, India and Scotch Goods” that he offered for sale “at his Shop in Cornhill, Boston.”  It was a message not only for “his good Customers” but “especially those noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country, who have signed the League and Covenant.”  Baldwin could have invoked the Continental Association that went into effect on December 1, 1774, but made an even stronger statement about fidelity to the American cause demonstrated by some of his customers.

As summer approached in 1774, the Boston Committee of Correspondence disseminated the Solemn League and Covenant, a nonimportation agreement drafted by Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren in response to the Boston Port Act.  Colonizers in Boston and throughout Massachusetts debated the measure, some enthusiastically signing and others arguing that they should wait to engage in a coordinated effort that spanned the colonies.  When the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in September and October, the delegates devised a nonimportation pact, the Continental Association, to achieve that unified response.  Newspapers carried details in their coverage of the meetings, printers published and sold pamphlets that included the Continental Association along with other “EXTRACTS FROM THE VOTES AND PROCEEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS,” some printers published broadside versions of the Continental Association for easy reference in homes and offices, and advertisements documented goods surrendered and sold under the conditions of the tenth article of the Continental Association.

Baldwin could have made an appeal to consumers who adhered to the Continental Association.  Instead, he sought to associate his customers and his goods with the uncompromising spirit of the Solemn League and Covenant drafted as soon as the colonies received word about the Boston Port Act.  The resolve of many colonizers strengthened as news about the other Coercive Acts – the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act – arrived, yet Baldwin declared that many of his customers had been unwavering in their determination to take action before receiving dispatch after dispatch about new abuses perpetrated by Parliament.  Even those who had not signed the Solemn League and Covenant could ameliorate their regrets, Baldwin suggested, by making purchases alongside others who had been “noble Supporters and Defenders of the Liberties of their Country” months before the Continental Association.  As the imperial crisis intensified, he offered consumers an opportunity to revise how they remembered their participation in resistance efforts.

October 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (October 31, 1774).

“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.

October 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (October 17, 1774).

“May therefore be … sold … without any Breach on the solemn League and Covenant.”

Politics took center stage in William Blair Townsend’s advertisements for “Shop Goods … consisting chiefly of Woollens, well suited for the approaching Season” in the October 17, 1774, edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  He looked to sell his entire inventory “by Wholesale and Retail” and close his shop, a casualty of the blockade of Boston that went into effect with the Boston Port Act that Parliament passed to punish the town for tossing tea into the harbor the previous December.  To that end, he assured prospective customers that “they may depend [the goods] were imported before the oppressive Acts on this Town and Province were laid.”  In addition to the Boston Port Act, Townsend invoked the Massachusetts Government Act and the other Coercive Acts.

Furthermore, he asserted that his wares “may therefore be safely transported, by Land, and sold in any Town of said Province, without any Breach on the solemn League and Covenant our worthy Friends in the Country have justly entered into, in Defence of themselves and their Posterity.”  Townsend referred to a plan outlined in a letter that the Boston Committee of Correspondence circulated on June 8.  After outlining the abuses perpetrated by Parliament, the letter encouraged resistance in the form of “affecting the trade and interest of Great Britain, so deeply as shall induce her to withdraw her oppressive hand.”  The Committee of Correspondence sought to revive nonimportation agreements enacted twice in the past decade, first in response to the Stamp Act and, later, the Townshend duties.  The letter proposed that colonizers “come into a solemn league, not to import goods from Great Britain, and not to buy any goods that shall hereafter be imported from thence, until our grievances shall be redressed.”  Some merchants advocated waiting for more comprehensive measures that enlisted cooperation of other colonies, like the Continental Association that the First Continental Congress was in the process of drawing up in Philadelphia at the time Townsend published his advertisement, yet colonizers in towns throughout Massachusetts supported the Solemn League and Covenant.

Knowing that was the case, Townsend acknowledged the politics of the moment in his advertisement.  He endorsed the pact while also making clear that neither he nor his prospective customers violated it.  They could buy and sell with clear consciences … and without attracting the ire of the public.  Beyond that, Townsend wished to clear out of Boston.  In a nota bene, he encouraged “Those that incline to purchase … to apply speedily” since he “is determined to remove into a clear Air in the Country, very soon.”  The situation had grown so bleak that that he did not intend to remain in Boston much longer.

September 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (September 26, 1774).

“NUMBER VII. of The Royal American Magazine.”

The Royal American Magazine experienced a disruption in publication during the summer of 1774.  In a notice in the June issue, Isaiah Thomas, the founder of the magazine, reported that the “Distresses of the Town of Boston” that resulted from the Boston Port Act forced him to suspend publication for a few months.  He hoped to resume once “the Affairs of this Country are a little better settled.”  Not long after making that announcement, however, he took to the pages of his own newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, to inform subscribers and the public that he transferred the magazine to Joseph Greenleaf.  An address from Greenleaf appeared immediately below Thomas’s advertisement.  They were the latest entries in a marketing campaign that commenced when Thomas first revealed his intention to circulate subscription proposals in May 1773 and subsequent newspaper advertisements in June, July, August, September, October, November, and December 1773 and January, February, March, April, May, and June 1774.  The “Distresses” meant no newspaper advertisements for the magazine in July 1774, but they resumed with the notices from Thomas and Greenleaf in August.

Those notices each made four more appearances in September.  Not surprisingly, the Massachusetts Spy accounted for three of them.  For four weeks, Thomas used his own newspaper to advise subscribers and others of the change in publisher for the magazine.  The companion notices also ran once in the Boston Evening-Post on September 5.  Greenleaf’s address indicated that the July issue of the magazine “is now in the Press, and will be published without Delay.”  On September 15, the last day that they ran in the Massachusetts Spy, that newspaper also carried a new advertisement from Greenleaf, one that declared, “THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER VII. of The Royal American Magazine.”  The July issue finally became available in September!  Greenleaf’s advertisement was brief and restrained compared to many that Thomas had inserted.  It stated that the issue was “Embellished with an elegant Engraving,” but did not give a description or even a name for Paul Revere’s engraving of “Spanish Treatment at Carthagena,” nor did the advertisement incorporate an extensive list of the contents to entice readers.  Instead, it succinctly noted that the magazine was “Printed and Sold at GREENLEAF’S Printing-Office … where Subscriptions continue to be taken in.” The new publisher hoped to expand the magazine’s circulation despite a less ambitious advertising strategy than Thomas sometimes deployed.  The announcement about the July issue ran only once in the Massachusetts Spy.  It appeared in the Boston Evening-Post for the first time in its next edition four days later and again the following week.  Amid the “Distresses of the Town of Boston,” Greenleaf’s first issue of the Royal American Magazine had less fanfare than many of the issues that Thomas published.

**********

“To the Subscribers of the ROYAL AMERICAN MAGAZINE”

  • September 1 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)
  • September 5 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
  • September 8 – Massachusetts Spy (third appearance)
  • September 15 – Massachusetts Spy (fourth appearance)

“To the PUBLIC, and in particular to the Subscribers”

  • September 1 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)
  • September 5 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
  • September 8 – Massachusetts Spy (third appearance)
  • September 15 – Massachusetts Spy (fourth appearance)

“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER VII”

  • September 15 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
  • September 19 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
  • September 26 – Boston Evening-Post (second appearance)

September 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (September 19, 1774).

“Next Door to Dr. Daniel Scott’s, at the Sign of the Leopard.”

In the fall of 1774, William Breck ran an advertisement “to inform his Friends and Customers” that he had moved to a new location.  They would no longer find him at his shop “at the Golden Key, in Ann-street” but instead at a shop “near the Hay-Market, next Door to Dr. Daniel Scott’s at the Sign of the Leopard, South-End of BOSTON.”  Even though he moved, he “continues to sell, as usual, A general Assortment of Hard-Ware GOODS … at the lowest Prices.”

Breck’s advertisement documented some of the visual culture of commerce that residents and visitors encountered as they traversed the streets of the busy port.  Both devices, the Golden Key and the Sign of the Leopard, had also circulated more widely via other media.  Breck distributed an engraved trade card that included an image of an ornate key suspended within a cartouche above a list of the merchandise he stocked “at the Golden Key near the draw-Bridge.”  Paul Revere produced the trade card in the late 1760s, yet Breck might have given out copies well into the 1770s.  (Mary Symonds, a milliner in Philadelphia, commissioned a similar trade card in 1768.  She wrote a receipted bill on the back of one of them in 1770.)  Breck’s advertisement ran on its own in the September 22 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, but it just happened to appear immediately below Scott’s advertisement for his “Medicine Store” at “the Sign of the LEOPARD” featuring a woodcut depicting a leopard in the September 19 edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  That image had been circulating in that newspaper for several months, making the Sign of the Leopard an attractive option when Breck decided to include a familiar landmark to help orient customers to his new location.

Breck did not mention whether the Golden Key moved with him or remained as a fixture on Ann Street, marking the location for the next tenant in his former shop.  He had previously made quite an investment in associating the image with his business.  Engraved trade cards, after all, were much more expensive than newspaper advertisements, handbills, and broadsides.  Did he surrender an aspect of the branding associated with his business for many years when he relocated?

August 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (August 15, 1774).

“ONE PENNY Reward.”

Even though they offered a reward, Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, did not really want anyone to return their runaway apprentice to them.  The reward, “ONE PENNY,” after all, was hardly an incentive but rather an insult to underscore how much contempt the printers had for James Hogan, their “ungrateful Apprentice.”  Contrary to standard language in runaway advertisements that advised ship captains against giving passage to runaway indentured servants and apprentices or enslaved people seeking freedom, the Fleets proclaimed that “Any Master of a Vessel is welcome to carry him off.”  They wished to be done with him, while also warning “All Printers on the Continent” against employing Hogan if he found his way to any of their printing offices.  Whatever skills he had gained, he was not worth the trouble.

Masters did not always treat apprentices well, yet the Fleets claimed that Hogan absconded “without any Cause (except his being treated with greater Lenity than his Behavior has merited for upwards of two years past).”  In addition to working in their shop, Hogan “has been employed as a Chief Musician in the Band of the Boston Regiment on Field Days.”  That was the only quality to his credit, “the only Science that he has made any great Proficiency in, except Profaneness, Lying, and some other ancient and modern Vices.”  Like too many young men seeking to express themselves and gain attention in a transatlantic consumer society, Hogan put too much emphasis on fashion, one of those vices.  According to the fleets, he had “long black Hair, which he is very often metamorphosing into the Macaroni Taste of the Day” and an extensive wardrobe.  In describing Hogan as a macaroni, the printers invoked eighteenth-century slang for a dandy or fop, referring in particular to elaborate hairstyles that rose far above the forehead.  A print produced in London in June 1774 depicted the dismayed reaction of an “honest FARMER” upon encountering his son, Tom, in all his macaroni trappings, including a wig with hair piled high above his head.

The Fleets suggested that Hogan focused more on this ridiculous fashion than his responsibilities in their printing office.  Even though he “has a very upright military Gait” and “affects the Appearance of a Person of Importance,” he was an apprentice who was “much more fond of Idle Company than of his proper Work.”  The Fleets did not seem disappointed by his departure.  Rather than seek his return, they used their advertisement to denigrate Hogan and warn others against trusting him.

August 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (August 8, 1774).

“THE PATRIOTIC WHISPER in the EARS of the KING.”

The imperial crisis intensified in the summer of 1774.  In response to the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the other Coercive Acts that Parliament enacted following the Boston Tea Party, printers, booksellers, and others marketed an array of books and pamphlets that advocated for the rights and liberties of the American colonies.  On August 8, Benjamin Edes and John Gill continued advertising Considerations on the Measures Carrying on with Respect to the British Colonies in North-America in the Boston-Gazette.  That same day, a subscription proposal for “A Small TRACT: Entitled THE PATRIOTIC WHISPER in the EARS of the KING” appeared in the Boston Evening-Post.

The lengthy secondary title of the proposed tract deployed similar rhetoric: “the grand Request of the People of AMERICA made manifest.  Intended as a CHARIOT of LIBERTY for the Sons of AMERICA, and a standing Memorial of the Rights of the American Colonies.  Being a political LIBERTY ORATION upon the Branches of the American Charters, proving them to be as sacred as the British Constitution.”  The subscription proposal delivered an impassioned plea to readers whether or not they happened to purchase copies to examine in more detail.

This “PATRIOTIC WHISPER” originated as a sermon that John Allen gave “on the last Annual Thanksgiving.”  Many colonizers in Boston were familiar with his sermons and tracts.  Allen had previously published The American Alarm, or the Bostonian Plea, for the Rights and Liberties, of the People and An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty, or the Essential Rights of the Americans, though he had adopted the pen name “A British Bostonian” for both.  The extended title of the Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty identified it as a sermon “Delivered at the Second Baptist-Church in Boston.  Upon the Last Annual Thanksgiving.”  That made it possible for readers to deduce the identity of “A British Bostonian.”  The subscription notice described Allen as a “humble Lover of Liberty, Dedicated to the Inhabitants of America,” and further explained that the tract was “calculated to support and strengthen the Common Cause of the Rights of the Colonies against the Power of Tyranny.”  Again, the advertising copy made a powerful political statement.

That, however, does not seem to have been enough to garner the necessary number of subscribers to take the tract to press.  Yet Allen’s views on the politics of the moment found their way into print in other pamphlets in 1774.  In Salem, Ezekiel Russell printed The Watchman’s Alarm to Lord N—h; or, The British Parliamentary Boston Port-Bill Unwrap[p]ed.  The title page attributed the work to “the British Bostonian.”  In Hartford, Ebenezer Watson reprinted a “carefully corrected” fifth edition of Allen’s Oration on the Beauties of Liberty.  The widespread dissemination of tracts by Allen promoted John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark to describe him as “New England’s Tom Paine” in the twentieth century.[1]  Even though Allen’s “PATRIOTIC WHISPER” did not go to press in a crowded market, the subscription proposal that ran in the Boston Evening-Post contributed to the discourse condemning ongoing abuses by Parliament.

**********

[1] John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine: John Allen and the Spirit of Liberty,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 21, no. 4 (October 1964): 561-570.