Political Pamphlet

January 30

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 30, 1776).

“The said gentlemen have not yet been able to settle with Robert Bell.”

The feud between the Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Common Sense, intensified in the January 30, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Advertisements for Bell’s unauthorized “SECOND EDITION” and a “NEW EDITION” currently “In the press, and [to] be published as soon as possible” by William Bradford and Thomas Bradford dominated the final page of that newspaper.  Variations of both advertisements appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post three days earlier, each of them stirring the pot and inspiring Bell and Paine to submit new material to Benjamin Towne, the printer of that newspaper, to incorporate into their advertisements.

The advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition still included an address “To the PUBLIC,” but it doubled in length with a “declaration” made by the author “for the sake of relieving the anxiety of his friends.”  At this point, Paine remained anonymous, at least as far as associating his name with the political pamphlet in the public prints was concerned.  He explained that his original plan for Common Sense had been to have it “printed in a series of newspapers,” but others, including Benjamin Rush, convinced him that was impractical and that even printers who supported the American cause would shy away from such radical content.  Rush recommended Robert Bell, the noted bookseller as an alternative to the several printers who published newspapers in Philadelphia, acting as an intermediary between Paine and Bell.  In this new “declaration,” Paine explained that “he knew nothing of Robert Bell, who was engaged to print it by a gentleman of this city,” referring to Rush but not naming him.  Though Rush acted “from a well meaning motive,” his suggestion eventually embroiled Paine in “the unpleasant situation.”

Paine did not hesitate to name Bell, proclaiming that he “hath neither directly, nor indirectly, received, or is to receive, any profit or advantage from the edition printed by Robert Bell.”  In the agreement negotiated by Rush, Paine paid for the expense of printing the pamphlet whether it sold or not.  In addition, that “noisy man,” Bell, would receive “one half of the profits” if the pamphlet was a success.  Paine estimated that amount should have been “upwards of thirty pounds.”  Furthermore, the author did not intend to keep his half of the profits.  Instead, “when news of our repulse at Quebec arrived in this city,” he committed his share “for the purpose of purchasing mittens for the troops ordered on that cold campaign.”  An assault on Quebec City, part of the invasion of Canada undertaken by American forces, had failed on New Year’s Eve.  The patriotic Paine wanted to send supplies, especially mittens, to the American soldiers who continued the siege of that city, but Bell did not turn over any money “into the hands of two gentlemen” that Paine designated as his intermediaries.  Paine claimed that he had “Bell’s written promise” for that arrangement.  Anyone who wished to do so could verify that by consulting with them since their “names are left at the bar of the London Coffee-house” for that purpose.

“The said gentlemen,” Paine continued, “have not yet been able to settle with Robert Bell according to the conditions of his written engagement.”  In addition, when they examined his account of the expenses and sales, they did not consider it “equitable” according to that agreement.  Paine warned that Bell had a week to make good on their agreement or else “he will be sued for the same.”  He concluded by stating, “This is all the notice that will ever be taken of him in future.”  Given the ferocity of the advertisements already published, readers may have doubted that.

The advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition featured far more new material than Bell’s advertisement.  He added a few lines to the nota bene that ran in the previous edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, though he had been so anxious to publish his updated advertisement that he inserted it in the January 29 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packetrather than waiting for it to appear in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on January 30.  In Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, Bell’s expanded advertisement ran next to the shorter version of the advertisement for the Bradfords’ edition of Common Sense, the one that included an address “TO THE PUBLIC” but not the additional “declaration” by the author.

Bell took the opportunity to demean the “NEW EDITION” the Bradfords were printing.  He declared that “the public may be certain” that the “smallness of print and scantiness of paper” meant that it would be an inferior edition “when compared with Bell’s second edition.”  Why would readers wait for the Bradfords’ edition “yet in the press” when Bell’s second edition was “out of the press” and available for sale?  As a final insult, he trumpeted that comparing the Bradfords’ forthcoming edition to his own second edition was like the difference “in size and value” between a “British shilling” and a “British half-crown.”  His second edition, Bell claimed, was the better value in so many ways.  Even though Paine pledged that he had nothing more to say about Bell, that made it seem unlikely that the author and the publisher of the first edition would quietly discontinue their attacks in the public prints.  In three short weeks since the first advertisement for Common Sense appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the controversy between Bell and Paine became its own commotion!

January 27

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 27, 1776).

“An author, without a name, hath asserted absolute falsehoods.”

The dispute over publishing the second edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense continued in an advertisement in the January 27, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, and William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers designated by Paine to publish a new edition with additional materials, ran competing advertisements on January 25.  The Bradfords’ advertisement included a note that informed the public that the author had not authorized Bell to publish a second edition, yet the enterprising printer and bookseller moved forward with the project anyway.  That advertisement ran once again on January 27.

In response, Bell submitted a new advertisement to the printing office.  An even more prominent headline proclaimed, “The SECOND EDITION of COMMON SENSE,” followed by a list of the four sections that appeared in the first edition.  That overview had been part of most of Bell’s advertisements, as well as an epigraph from “Liberty,” a poem by James Thomson.  In response to the address “To the PUBLIC” in the Bradfords’ advertisement, Bell added his own address “To the PUBLIC.”  In it, he explained that in the previous edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, “an author, without a name, hath asserted absolute falsehoods.”  At the time, Paine remained anonymous (and, for the first time, this advertisement described his political pamphlet as “WRITTEN BY AN ENGLISHMAN”).  Bell objected to the claims that Paine made that “he gave directions and orders to the publisher of the first edition not to proceed.”  For his part, Bell declared that “[a]s soon as the printer and publisher discovered the capricious disposition of the ostensible author, he disclaimed all future connexion,” perfectly content to break ties with Paine.  Furthermore, “by the publication of a second edition which he advertised in a news paper, [Bell] immediately declared his desirable independence from the trammels of catch-penny author-craft, whose cunning was so exceeding great as to attempt to destroy the reputation of his own first edition, by advertising intended additions before his earliest and best customers had time to read what they had so very lately purchased.”  That certainly was not a flattering portrait of Paine.  The contents of Common Sense gave colonizers a lot to discuss.  The dispute in the newspaper advertisements gave them even more.

Undaunted, Bell testified that he “neither heard nor received any orders not to proceed, there [the author’s] assertions must be far from truth.”  In addition, Bell further dismissed Paine’s expectations for the publication of a second edition, stating that “if he had either heard or received any such directions or orders, he most certainly would have treated them immediately with that contempt which such unreasonable, illegal, and tyrannic usurpations over his freedom and liberty in business deserved.”  Bell launched one more tirade: “When Mr. ANONYMOUS condescendeth again to puff his pamphlet … and to reduce a price which himself had a share in making, his brother bookseller, who scorneth duplicity in business or sentiment, wisheth he may find out a more eligible mode of proving his attachment to principles than to lay the foundations of his generosity in the despicable ebullitions of dishonest malevolence.”  Bell was annoyed that Paine promoted the Bradfords’ edition as “one half of the price of the former edition,” a suggestion that Bell overcharged when, according to Bell, the author and the publisher set the price in consultation with each other.  A lower price for the Bradfords’ edition was not truly “generosity,” especially when inspired by “despicable ebullitions of dishonest malevolence” rather than a desire to make the pamphlet more accessible to the public.  Clearly, Paine’s address “To the PUBLIC” did not cause Bell to back down but instead to double down on printing and marketing his second edition of Common Sense.

January 25

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 25, 1776).

“A new edition of COMMON SENSE … with large and interesting additions by the author.”

A battle over publishing Thomas Paine’s Common Sense played out in advertisements became apparent to the public when they perused the advertisements in the January 25, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Sixteen days earlier, that newspaper had been the first to carry an advertisement for the inflammatory political pamphlet.  Robert Bell, the publisher, promoted it, while Paine remained anonymous.  It sold so quickly that Bell began advertising “A NEW EDITION of COMMON SENSE” on January 20.  Five days later, he ran an updated version of the original advertisement, using type already set.  The compositor merely replaced the first line, removing the date (“Philadelphia, January 9, 1776”) and replacing it with a headline that proclaimed, “The second edition,” in a larger font.

Yet Paine and Bell had had a falling out.  Bell’s “second edition” was an unauthorized edition, as a new advertisement on the first page of the Pennsylvania Evening Post made clear.  William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, announced that they had a “new edition” of Common Sense “IN the press, and will be published as soon as possible.”  Unlike Bell’s second edition advertised elsewhere in that issue, their new edition featured “large and interesting additions by the author, as will be expressed at the time of publication.”  As a preview, the Bradfords indicated that the bonus materials included a “seasonable and friendly admonition to the people called QUAKERS.”  To entice prospective customers to reserve copies or purchase them as soon as they were available, the Bradfords noted that “Several hundred are already bespoke,” including “one thousand for Virginia.”  Advertisements for the pamphlet already appeared in newspapers in New York.  The Bradfords made plans to distribute the pamphlet south of Philadelphia.  In addition, they reported that a “German edition is likewise in the press” for the benefit of the many German settlers in Pennsylvania and the backcountry extending down to North Carolina.

This advertisement included an address “To the PUBLIC,” perhaps composed by Paine, that outlined the dispute between the author and the original publisher.  “The encouragement and reception which this pamphlet hath already met with, and the great demand for the same,” the address declared, “hath induced the publisher of the first edition to print a new edition unknown to the author.”  Paine had “expressly directed him not to proceed therein without orders, because that large additions would be made hereto.”  He also did not appreciate that Bell had not managed to turn a profit on the first edition, though that did not receive mention in the address in the advertisement.  Readers needed to be aware that Bell’s new edition, “lately advertised by the printer of the first [edition], is without the intended additions.”  That being the case, readers who exercised a little patience for the Bradfords’ edition “now in the press” and authorized by the author could acquire both the contents of the original pamphlet and the additions in a single volume … and at a bargain price!  Even with the new material, the cost “will … be reduced to one half of the price of the former edition.”  Bell advertisements consistently listed “two shillings” for the pamphlet.  The Bradfords charged one shilling.  They also gave “allowance to those who take quantities” or a discount for purchasing in volume, either to retail or distribute to friends, family, and associates.  That would “accommodate [the pamphlet] to the abilities of every man.”  In other words, the lower price made it possible to disseminate Common Sense even more widely.  When it came to airing grievances over the publication of Common Sense in newspaper advertisements, this address “To the PUBLIC” was only the opening salvo.  The dispute continued in subsequent editions of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers.

January 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (January 22, 1776).

“To be sold by W. GREEN … COMMON SENSE.”

Just days after an advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense made its first appearance in a newspaper beyond those published in Philadelphia, a second advertisement appeared in yet another newspaper.  The Constitutional Gazettecarried that first advertisement on January 20, 1776.  A variation ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury on January 22.

Both advertisements included the title of the political pamphlet, “COMMON SENSE,” though the version in the Constitutional Gazette indicated that it was “ADDRESS TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA” while the one in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury instead stated that it was “ADDRESSED TO THE Inhabitants of North-America.”  Both listed the “interesting SUBJECTS” contained within the pamphlet, offering four section headings that included “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution” and “Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs.”  Both concluded with an epigraph from James Thomson’s poem, “Liberty” (1734): “Man knows no Master save creating HEAVEN, / Or those whom Choice and common Good ordain.”  Those lines previewed the arguments readers would encounter in the pamphlet.  These advertisements in newspapers printed in New York replicated those previously published in newspapers in Philadelphia.

The new advertisement in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury did have one significant difference from the earlier advertisements.  It did not include the name of the publisher of the first edition, Robert Bell.  The introduction to the version in the Constitutional Gazette did mention the prominent printer and bookseller, advising readers that “ROBERT BELL, in Third-Street, Philadelphia,” sold the pamphlet and then also listing William Green, a “Bookseller, in Maiden Lane, New-York,” as a local purveyor of Common Sense.  The version in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, however, eliminated Bell and named Green as the sole vendor of the pamphlet: “Just published, and to be sold by W. GREEN.  BOOKBINDER, in MAIDEN-LANE.”  Eighteenth-century readers knew to separate the phrases “Just published” and “to be sold by.”  Only the latter referred to Green’s role in the production and distribution of the pamphlet.  The phrase “Just published” merely meant “now available.”  Green did not print Common Sense, but when he submitted copy for his advertisement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury’s printing office he privileged his role in making the incendiary new pamphlet available in that city.  As the pamphlet gained popularity, John Anderson, the printer of the Constitutional Gazette, published and advertised a local edition (and a second local edition), but for a short time Green was the only retailer in New York hawking the pamphlet in the public prints.  His marketing efforts contributed to the stir caused by Paine’s appeal to declare independence rather than continue to seek a redress of grievances within the imperial system.

January 21

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (January 20, 1776).

“A NEW Edition of COMMON SENSE is just published.”

On the same day that the first advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense appeared in a newspaper beyond Philadelphia, another advertisement for “A NEW Edition of COMMON SENSE” ran in both the Pennsylvania Evening Post and the Pennsylvania Ledger.  On January 9, 1776, the Pennsylvania Evening Post had been the first newspaper to carry an advertisement for the political pamphlet.  Within a week, Robert Bell, the publisher, inserted the advertisement in all six newspapers published in Philadelphia at the time.  The advertisement for the “NEW EDITION of COMMON SENSE” in the January 20 edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger was one of two for the pamphlet in that issue.  It also carried Bell’s original advertisement.  The printing office apparently included it on one of the first pages printed and later received the new notice to integrate into one of the last pages printed.

Pennsylvania Ledger (January 20, 1776).

These advertisements testify to the popularity of Common Sense immediately after its initial publication.  They also obscure a disagreement between Bell and Paine.  The author, who remained anonymous for nearly three months after publication of the first edition, did not authorize Bell to publish a second edition.  Paine wished to donate his share of the profits to purchase supplies for American soldiers participating in the invasion of Quebec, but he learned that Bell’s first edition did not generate any profits despite its popularity.  Disillusioned with their collaboration, Paine instructed Bell not to proceed with a second edition.  Instead, he intended to add appendices and other content and find a new publisher among the many printers in Philadelphia.  The author eventually worked with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, though Bell moved forward with a second edition against Paine’s wishes.  Over the next several months, Bell and Paine engaged in an argument (even as the “Englishman” who penned Common Sense remained anonymous) in the public prints, both in letters and advertisements in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers published in Philadelphia.  Advertisements became a means for promoting not only the political pamphlet but also the author’s preferred edition of it!

January 20

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

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

Constitutional Gazette (January 20, 1776).

“Now selling by WILLIAM GREEN, Bookseller, in Maiden Lane, New-York.  COMMON SENSE.”

Just eleven days after the first newspaper advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense appeared in the January 9, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the first advertisement for the inflammatory political pamphlet ran in a newspaper outside of Philadelphia.  Within a week, Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, inserted advertisements in all six newspapers printed in Philadelphia, including Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote.  One of the most savvy and influential American printers and booksellers of the eighteenth century, Bell quickly dispatched copies of the pamphlet to New York.  On January 20, the Constitutional Gazette carried an advertisement that nearly replicated those in Philadelphia’s newspapers.

That notice announced the publication of the pamphlet and stated that it was “now selling by ROBERT BELL, in Third-Street, Philadelphia” for two shillings per copy.  Yet prospective customers did not need to send to Philadelphia to acquire copies because the pamphlet was “now selling by WILLIAM GREEN, Bookseller, in Maiden Lane, New-York.”  Like the other advertisements, the notice in the Constitutional Gazette did not identify Paine as the author.  It gave the title of the work, “COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA,” and listed the various headings for the sections of the pamphlet.  Readers may have already heard about a new pamphlet that took Philadelphia by storm and some of the arguments for declaring independence that it contained, yet such an outline likely told them more than they already knew and whetted their appetites for more.  What did the pamphlet say about “Monarchy and Hereditary succession”?  What kinds of “Thoughts on the present state of American affairs” did it contain?  What did the author think of “the present Ability of America” in its contest against Great Britain?  Even before they saw anything in print, most residents of New York probably first learned about Common Sense via word of mouth.  The advertisement in the Constitutional Gazette offered readers an opportunity to move beyond excited conversations about what they heard the pamphlet said about monarchy, government, and the prospects for declaring independence to obtaining their own copies and reading the treatise for themselves.  It did not take long for advertisements for Common Sense to move beyond Philadelphia’s newspapers to the Constitutional Gazette in New York and other newspapers in other cities and towns.

January 16

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

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

Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote (January 16, 1776).

“COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.”

On January 16, 1776, Robert Bell’s advertisement for the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Comon Sense made its third appearance in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  That newspaper, the only triweekly published in Philadelphia at the time, was the first to carry Bell’s advertisement.  It ran on January 9, 13, and 16, but not on January 11.  During that week, Bell also inserted an advertisement for Common Sense in each of the other five newspapers printed in Philadelphia at the time. On January 16, Henrich Millers Pennsylvanische Staatsbote was the last to feature it, the only advertisement in that newspaper printed in English rather than German.  Bell, already known for his savvy marketing, made sure that German settlers who could read English saw the political pamphlet advertised in the newspaper they were most likely to consult.

By that time, many of them may have already heard about the incendiary Common Sense, the way it mocked monarchy, and the arguments it made in favor of the colonies declaring independence.  Throughout most of the imperial crisis, colonizers blamed Parliament for perpetrating various abuses.  They sought redress for their grievances from the king. Over time, however, many identified George III as the author of their misfortune.  The monarch, after all, possessed ultimate responsibility for what occurred in his realm.  The Declaration of Independence listed more than two dozen grievances, assigning them all to the king rather than Parliament.  The publication of Common Sense in January 1776 played a significant role in shifting attitudes about the role the king played in the imperial crisis and the war that began with the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

Among the observations and arguments that Paine advanced, he stated that “in America THE LAW IS KING.  For as in absolute governments, the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King and there ought to be no other.”  It was an ideal embraced by the founding generation … and it is an ideal under threat today as the nation commemorates 250 years since the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  Citizens and the legislators who represent them must hold those who seek to be absolute rulers accountable to the rule of law so the republic remains a place where “THE LAW IS KING.”

January 13

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

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (January 13, 1776).

“COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.”

Robert Bell, one of the most prominent printers and booksellers in America, already had experience with extensive advertising campaigns by the time he published and marketed Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in January 1776.  Within a week, Bell inserted advertisements for what would become the most influential political pamphlet of the era of the American Revolution in all six newspapers printed in Philadelphia.

He started with the Pennsylvania Evening Post on January 9, then placed nearly identical advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal on January 10.  On January 13, the advertisement ran in the Pennsylvania Ledger (and once again in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the city’s only triweekly rather than weekly newspaper).  Bell also ran the advertisement in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet on January 15.  His notice had a privileged place in Pennsylvania Ledger (the first item in the first column on the first page) and Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (the first advertisement following the news).

Even the Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staaatsbote carried the advertisement on January 16, one week after Bell’s first advertisement appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  It was the only advertisement in English, even though the newspaper’s masthead advised that “All ADVERTISEMENTS to be inserted in this Paper, or printed single by HENRY MILLER, Publisher hereof, are by him translated gratis.”  Perhaps, since the pamphlet had not yet been translated into German, Bell instructed Miller to publish the advertisement in English to entice bilingual German colonizers.  Later in 1776, Melchior Steiner and Carl Cist, who had recently advertised that they printed in English, German, and other languages, published a German translation, Gesunde Vernunft.

The arguments and ideas that Paine presented in Common Sense caused a popular uproar.  Steiner and Cist’s German translation was only one of many local editions; printers in other cities and towns, especially in New York and New England, produced and advertised their own editions of the pamphlet.  Yet neither Paine nor Bell knew in advance that Common Sense would have such a reception.  It was not long before the author and the publisher had a falling out, causing Paine to work with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, on the second edition.  Before that, however, Bell applied his long experience advertising books to promoting Common Sense in the public prints when he published the first edition.

October 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (October 5, 1775).

“THE Speeches of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on American Taxation.”

James Rivington did not know it when he published the October 5, 1775, edition, nor did readers and the rest of the community, but he would soon discontinue printing Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  With hindsight, we know that less than two months later, on November 27, the Sons of Liberty would attack his printing office and destroy his press and type “because of his pronounced Tory sentiments.”[1]  It was not the first time.  His home and printing office had been attacked the previous May.  For a few weeks, he had sought refuge on a British ship in the harbor.  He had been hung in effigy.  After all that, the November 23, 1775, edition would be the last issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer that he would print before departing for London.  The printer returned to New York in 1777, during the British occupation, and established Rivington’s New-York Loyal Gazette.  Today, historians consider it possible that Rivington spied on behalf of the American cause, but that would not have been public knowledge in the 1770s.

What was public knowledge was that the masthead of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer featured the seal of Great Britain at a time when the mastheads for other newspapers did not have an image or chose some other device.  The “UNITE OR DIE” political cartoon depicting a severed snake, each segment representing a colony, even appeared in the masthead of the Pennsylvania Journal.  A few other newspapers did continue to include the seal of Great Britain in their masthead, but the printers did not have the same history of expressing positions that supported the officials considered enemies of American liberties.  Even with the seal of Great Britain in the masthead, the October 5, 1775, edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer included an advertisement for “THE Speeches of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on American Taxation, delivered April 19, 1774” and “His Speech on Moving his Resolutions of Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22d, 1775.”  Rivington printed and sold both speeches by a member of Parliament considered a friend to America.  The printer had a history of marketing “pamphlets on the Whig and Tory side” of “The American Controversy” and arguing for freedom of the press when it came to the contents of his newspaper and other items he printed and sold.  After the battles at Lexington and Concord, however, he discontinued advertising pamphlets that expressed the Tory perspective.  The advertisement for Burke’s speeches, pamphlets that he printed as well as promoted, starkly presented only one side of “THE AMERICAN CONTEST.”  Rivington seemingly changed his advertising strategy as the political situation in the colonies intensified once hostilities commenced in Massachusetts.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 686.

October 2

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (October 2, 1775).

“THE SPEECH of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies.”

Interest in current events continued to influence some of the products advertised to colonial consumers in the October 2, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  Robert Aitken once again ran his advertisement promoting a “neat and correct VIEW of the late BATTLE at CHARLESTOWN,” now known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Subscribers to the Pennsylvania Magazine would receive the print as a premium, while others could purchase it separately.

Immediately below Aitken’s advertisement, James Humphreys, Jr., announced that he sold “THE SPEECH of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775.”  In that speech, delivered less than a month before the battles at Lexington and Concord, Burke presented peace and strengthening ties with the colonies as preferable to war.  The colonies, after all, were an important market for British goods.  Burke proposed allowing the colonies to elect their own representatives to send to Parliament as well as establishing a General Assembly with the authority to regulate taxes that would meet in the colonies.  By that time, colonizers already recognized Burke as a friend and advocate for their cause.  In April 1774, he had delivered a speech in favor of repealing duties on tea.

Humphreys also advertised a collection of speeches made “in the last session of the present Parliament” by “Governor Johnston; Mr. Cruger; the Hon. Capt. Lutterell; Col. Ackland,” and several others.  That anthology included another speech by Burke, that one “in favour of the Protestant Dissenters” and religious liberty from 1773 during “the second Parliament of George III.”  In addition, Humphreys stocked an “Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the People of Great Britain in the present dispute with America” by Arthur Lee, born in Virginia yet serving as an agent for Massachusetts in London in 1775.  Humphreys concluded with a note that he also sold “several other valuable pamphlets on American affairs.”  He most likely marketed American editions published by James Rivington, the printer of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer often derided as a Tory who supported Parliament.  Yet Rivington printed, advertised, and disseminated pamphlets representing a range of views, considering each of them opportunities to generate revenue.  Among the “valuable pamphlets” that Humphreys named in his advertisement, he selected only those that supported the American cause, though he may have made a broader range of perspectives available without listing them in the public prints.  Whatever the case, he anticipated that pamphlets about current events would attract customers.