John Allen

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.

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[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.

August 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (August 26, 1773).

“THE trial and defence of the Rev. JOHN ALLEN, (author of the Oration on the Beauties of Liberty).”

In several entries for the Adverts 250 Project, I have traced advertisements for 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, both signed by “A British Bostonian,” in late 1772 and 1773.  According to John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark, the Oration “proved to be one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[1]  Both pamphlets had been attributed to Isaac Skillman for some time, but work undertaken by Thomas R. Adams in the early 1960s “conclusively identified the author of the pamphlets as one John Allen.”[2]

Curious about the evidence that settled any dispute over the authorship of these pamphlets, I consulted the entries for each in Adams’s bibliographical study, American Independence: The Growth of an Idea.  Adams pointed to the December 10, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, stating that it “identifies John Allen as ‘The British Bostonian’ who wrote An Oration Upon the Beauties of Liberty.”[3]  The local news included in that issue includes the reference: “Last Thanksgiving P.M. Mr. Allen, a British Bostonian, preached a Sermon at the Rev. Mr. Davis’s Baptist Meeting-house from those Words, Micah VII. 3.”  An advertisement in the February 2, 1773, edition of the Essex Gazette promoted “An Oration on the Beauties of LIBERTY, from Mic. vii. 3. Delivered at the Second Baptist Church in Boston, on the last Thanksgiving Day.”  That does indeed present conclusive evidence of Allen’s authorship of the Oration.

Newspaper advertisements provide additional evidence.  A notice in the August 26,1773, edition of the Massachusetts Spy explicitly associates Allen with the Oration.  David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis, the publishers of the Orationand the American Alarm, advertised “THE trial and defence of the Rev. JOHN ALLEN, (author of the Oration on the Beauties of Liberty) … Published at the request of many.”  As Bumsted and Clark explain in their biographical sketch of Allen, he “was tried in the Old Bailey for forging and uttering a promissory note for pounds” in January 1769.  Allen claimed that he discovered the note in a memorandum book and, unaware that it was a forgery, attempted to claim a reward for returning it to the rightful owner.  He gave a misleading account about how he came into possession of the note.  In the end, “Allen was acquitted of the charge of forgery, but obviously he had not conducted himself as a clergyman should in the affair.”  Rumors traveled with Allen when he migrated from London to Boston, making some colonizers hesitant to allow him to preach and, eventually, inciting interest in publishing a transcript of his trial, though “whether by his friends or his enemies is not clear.”[4]

Identity of the author of An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty may have been temporarily obscured, but residents of Boston knew that Allen was the “British Bostonian” who penned that pamphlet, originally a sermon, and other political tracts published in the early 1770s.  Newspaper advertisements play a role in confirming Allen’s authorship centuries later, providing key evidence for bibliographical work.

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[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.

[2] Bumsted and Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine,” 561.

[3] Thomas R. Adams, American Independence: The Growth of an Idea: A Bibliographical Study of the American Political Pamphlets Printed between 17634 and 1776 Dealing with the Dispute between Great Britain and Her Colonies (Providence: Brown University Press, 1965), 68-9.

[4] Bumsted and Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine,” 562-3.

July 2

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

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

New-London Gazette (July 2, 1773).

“Also at the Printing-Office in Norwich, and by Nathan Bushnell, jun. and Joseph Knight, Post Riders.”

In early July 1773, Timothy Green, the printer of the New-London Gazette, ran an advertisement for a pamphlet that he “Just Publish’d” and sold at the printing office.  He noted that it was the “Third EDITION corrected.”  The Adverts 250 Project has traced the marketing of earlier editions of that pamphlet, John Allen’s “ORATION, Upon the BEAUTIES of LIBERTY, Or the essential Rights of the AMERICANS,” a publication that John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark have described as “one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[1]

In advertisements in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy on January 14, 1773, Benjamin Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis announced that the pamphlet was “Now in the press, and will be published in a few days.”  A week later, the printers announced “This Day was published” the “SECOND EDITION.”  Newspaper advertisements did not account for the first edition.  It did not take long for Samuel Hall and Ebenezer Hall, the printers of the Essex Gazette, to advertise that they sold the pamphlet at their printing office in Salem.  Copies of the Oration circulated beyond Boston.

Green … or Joseph Knight, a post rider … apparently acquired the pamphlet and determined that the conditions were right to market a third edition in Connecticut.  The imprint on the title page stated, “Printed by T. Green, for Joseph Knight, post-rider.”  The efforts of the printer and the post rider to disseminate Allen’s Oration extended beyond the printing office in New London to include the printing office in Norwich, Knight, and another post rider, Nathan Bushnell, Jr.  Printer-booksellers frequently stocked books and pamphlets published by their fellow printer-booksellers.  They also served as local agents who collected subscriptions for proposed publications.  Newspaper advertisements, however, rarely mentioned post riders as publishers or even as local agents responsible for selling and distributing books and pamphlets.  Green and Knight devised an innovative method for marketing and disseminating this pamphlet, perhaps increasing its circulation and contributing to the popularity that led to four other editions appearing in the next two years.

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[1] John M. Bumstred 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): 562.

April 8

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (April 8, 1773).

“The American Alarm or the Bostonian Pleas for the Rights and Liberties of the People.”

The headline proclaimed, “THE ALARM.”  As readers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letterexamined the advertisement more closely, they learned that David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis published and sold a pamphlet by an author who referred to himself as the “BRITISH BOSTONIAN” and that many residents of Boston knew was John Allen.  In December 1772, Allen and the printers published a subscription notice calling on colonizers to reserve copies of “The AMERICAN ALARM, Or, a Confirmation of the Boston Plea. For the Rights and Liberties of the People.”

In the original notice, Allen stated that the pamphlet was “Humbly addressed to the King and Council, and to the Constitutional sons of Liberty in America.”  While that dedication appeared on the title page, the author and the printers updated the advertisement to include “His Most Sacred Majesty George the Third, … his Excellency the Governor of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay, … the Honorable the People’s Council, … the Honorable House of Representatives, and … the worthy Sons of Freedom throughout America.”  In both instances, the promoters suggested that a broad audience would benefit from perusing the pamphlet, not just those who already agreed with the British Bostonian’s arguments and conclusions.  Still, addressing “the Constitutional sons of Liberty in America” and “the worthy Sons of Freedom throughout America” targeted the audiences that Allen and the printers considered most likely to purchase the pamphlet.

The advertisement instructed subscribers “to call or send for their Books,” suggesting that customers had indeed submitted their names to Kneeland and Adams after seeing the notice in the newspaper four months earlier.  In the time that elapsed since then, Allen disseminated another political pamphlet, that one also printed by Kneeland and Adams.  Allen’s Oration on the Beauties of Liberty or the Essential Rights of the Americans garnered greater attention in Boston and beyond than the first pamphlet he advertised.  As John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark note, the Oration “proved to be one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[1]  By the time The American Alarm went to press, colonizers had access to two editions of the Oration.  Even though The American Alarm did not become as popular as the Oration, its publication likely contributed to debates underway in the colonies and, eventually, the decision to declare independence.  Allen advanced a novel argument in The American Alarm in 1773.  According to Bumsted and Clark, “The important point was not that Allen denied the applicability of English law in America, but that he did so with a simple, direct statement of fact rather than through a long rehearsal of legal arguments.  He assumed as given what others in America sought to prove.”[2]  The more moderate tone of the Oration, in contrast, may have made it more popular among readers prior to the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord since it aligned more closely with public opinion in the early 1770s.

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[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.

[2] Bumstead and Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine,” 568.

February 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (February 2, 1773).

“An ORATION on the Beauties of LIBERTY.”

For the third consecutive week, an advertisement for “An ORATION on the Beauties of LIBERTY, from Mic. vii. 3. Delivered at the Second Baptist Church in Boston, on the last Thanksgiving Day” ran in the February 2, 1773, edition of the Essex Gazette.  That notice also informed readers that the printers of the newspaper, Samuel Hall and Ebenezer Hall, also sold “Fleeming’s REGISTER for New-England and Nova-Scotia, with an Almanack for 1773.”  Some of the contents of the almanac became obsolete with each passing day, but the principles expressed in the Oration endured long after John Allen, known as a “British Bostonian,” gave the address in December 1772.

John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark described the Oration as “one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[1]  In addition to printers producing the pamphlet in Boston, Hartford and New London in Connecticut, and Wilmington in Delaware, printers and booksellers advertised the Oration in other cities and towns.  The Halls encouraged the popularity and dissemination of the pamphlet by advertising it in Salem as soon David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis, the printers, took it to press and made it available for purchase.  On January 14, Kneeland and Davis placed notices in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy to announce that the pamphlet was “Now in the press, and will be published in a few days.”  Just five days later, the Halls advertised that they sold the pamphlet.

The Halls almost certainly stocked and sold other books that they did not advertise in their newspaper.  They chose to devote space to promoting two items they considered timely, an almanac for 1773 and a pamphlet that critiqued the appointment of Commissioners of Inquiry concerning the Gaspee incident.  Advertisements in multiple newspapers published in multiple cities and distributed to even more cities and towns likely helped Allen’s Oration become such a popular pamphlet during the era of the American Revolution.

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[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.

January 21

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (January 21, 1773).

“The SECOND EDITION.”

Just a week after the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy carried advertisements announcing that An Oration on the Beauties of Liberty or the Essential Rights of the Americans was “Now in the press, and will be published in a few days” on January 14, 1773, both newspapers carried notices about the publication of a second edition.  John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark identify the author, “A British Bostonian,” as John Allen, a Baptist minister who migrated to New England in the early 1770s.  They consider the Oration “one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[1]

The Oration very quickly went to a second edition.  Was that because the first edition sold out so quickly?  Or did other factors play a role.  The advertisement in the January 21 edition of the Massachusetts Spy implied that it was the former, that the popularity of the pamphlet prompted the printers, David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis, to publish “The SECOND EDITION.”  In addition to the advertisements that ran on January 14, another advertisement appeared in the Boston-Gazette on January 18, helping to incite interest and demand in a pamphlet drawn from an address that many Bostonians heard several weeks earlier.  Word-of-mouth chatter about the Oration likely supplemented newspaper advertisements in promoting the pamphlet.

The advertisement in the January 21 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter provided additional details. It featured two revisions to the original notice.  The headline now read “This Day Published” instead of “To-Morrow will be Published.”  In addition, a new line at the end of the notice advised prospective customers that they could purchase “The SECOND EDITION corrected.”  Did Kneeland and Davis sell out of the first edition?  Or did they take advantage of producing a second edition that corrected errors to suggest that such the first edition met with such success that it made the immediate publication of a second edition necessary?  Either way, the reception of the first two editions apparently convinced other printers in Boston, Hartford and New London in Connecticut, and Wilmington in Delaware, that they could generate revenues by publishing their own editions.  In so doing, they assisted in disseminating arguments that encouraged colonizers to move from resistance to revolution during the era of the imperial crisis that culminated in thirteen colonies declaring independence from Great Britain.

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[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.

December 20

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (December 17, 1772).

“It is requested that those thoughts may be published, at this alarming season.”

In November and December 1772, an author who identified himself as “A BRITISH BOSTONIAN” placed a newspaper advertisement addressed to “the Inhabitants of the Town of BOSTON” in which he proposed publishing “a concise Essay upon the Beauties of LIBERTY in its Political and Sacred branches.”  As a relative newcomer to the city, he considered it “very unpolite [for] a stranger to take this freedom” of publishing “The AMERICAN ALARM, Or, a Confirmation of the Boston Plea, for the Rights and Liberties of the People” without first requesting “the approbational leave of the Gentlemen of Boston.”  The “Gentlemen” of the city could demonstrate their approbation or support for the project by entering their names on the subscription lists kept by printers David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis.

Although historians and bibliographers formerly attributed American Alarm to Isaac Skillman, the pastor at the Second Baptist Church of Boston, John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark convincingly demonstrate that John Allen, “a Baptist minister and a recent émigré from England, politically disenchanted and personally discredited,” penned both American Alarm and An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty, Or the Essential Rights of the Americans.[1]  Kneeland and Davis printed these “small but inflammatory political pamphlets” in 1773, suggesting that the advertisement in the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Spy helped in recruiting subscribers for American Alarm.[2]  Bumsted and Clark describe the Oration as “one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775.”[3]

They devote less attention to American Alarm, but do provide essential context for understanding events that would have resonated with newspaper readers and prospective subscribers to the pamphlet when they encountered the advertisement.  Allen wrote American Alarm in response to Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s announcements that the colonial legislature would no longer pay the salaries of the governor and judges.  Instead, those officers would receive their salaries from the Crown, an arrangement that many colonizers believed made the governor and judges beholden to the monarch and, especially, Parliament.  According to the British Bostonian, “The plan is laid, the foundation is fixed, to make them [the governor and judges] dependant for place and payment, upon the arbitrary will, and power of the British ministry; upon that power that has for years been seeking the destruction of your RIGHTS.”[4]

Bumsted and Clark describe Allen as “New England’s Tom Paine,” a counterpart to the author of the political pamphlet, Common Sense, widely considered to have had the most significant impact in convincing colonizers to declare independence.  Bumsted and Clark assert that some colonizers did not need as much pushing in that direction as their leaders.  The arguments made by the British Bostonian and the popularity of American Alarm and, especially, the Oration “suggest that in attitude if not in ideology, a large portion of the population may have been well in advance of its leadership” in 1772 and 1773.[5]  Those colonizers expressed their politics by buying the pamphlets and imbibing their contents.  Though he may have exaggerated how much support and encouragement he initially received, Allen asserted that after he delivered “my thoughts in public, upon the Beauties of LIBERTY” that listeners “requested that those thoughts may be published, at this alarming season.”

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[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): 562.

[2] Bumsted and Clark, “New-England’s Tom Paine,” 561.

[3] Bumsted and Clark, “New-England’s Tom Paine,” 561.

[4] British Bostonian [John Allen], The American Alarm, or the Bostonian Plea, for the Rights, and Liberties of the People (Boston:  D. Kneeland and N. Davis, 1773), 17.

[5] Bumsted and Clark, “New-England’s Tom Paine,” 570.