EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
advocate's library, mentioning, that whereas the far gpreater part of the hooks taught in our schools and colleges are imported from foreign places into this country, to the great discouragement of their own manufactories. And the petitioners being well assured, that if the council, patrons of the university of this city, would be pleased to constitute diem printers to the said university, they will be enabled to print the above-men- tioned books better, and furnish them at easier rates than the country could be otherways pro- vided of them; and that the importation of such books from foreign places will be thereby in a great measure prevented. Craving therefore the council to constitute and appoint the peti- tioners conjoint printers to the said university, with all the rights, privileges, and emoluments, thereto belonging, for such a term of years, as the council should think fit; as the petition beats, which being considered by the council, they with the extraordinary deacons nominated and elected, and hereby nominats and elects the said Mr. James Davison and Mr. Thomas Rud- diman, to be conjoint printers to the university of this city, and longest liver of them two, during their respective lives."
l72S,April 24. Died, Awnsham Chubcbilx, who is said by Granger to have been the greatest bookseller and stationer of his time. — ^An original letter, dated April 30, 1728, observes, " I hear that your great bookseller, Awnsham Churchill, is dead : he had a great stock, and printed many books; and I hope the sale of hb effects will throw a plenty of books on the city of London, and reduce their present high price." In con- junction with his brother John, his name will be found to the principal publications from the period of the revolution to his death; if he did not retire from business before that event, and that he may view with the Tonsons who at- tained to tfie honour of a seat in parliament. Dunton characterizes the two brothers in the fallowing paragraph : — " Mr. Awnsham and Mr. John Churchill, two booksellers (and brothers) of an universal wholesale trade. I traded very considerably with them for several years; and must do them the justice to say, that I was never concerned with any persons more exact in their accounts, or more just in their payments. They are both so well furnished for any great undertaking, that what they have hitherto pro- poied, they nave gone through with great honour to themselves, and satisfaction to mbscriberi; of which their printing Camden's Britannia, and the publication of a New Collection of Travels, lately come abroad, are undeniable instances. Sir Richard Blackmore's Poetical Works, and Mr. Locke's Essay, have received no small ad- vantage by coming abroad through their hands; and, to finish their characters, they never starve an undertaking to save charges. In the Neu> Collection of Travels before mentioned, thongh they make about one hundred and fifty sheets and fifty cuts more than were promised, yet they ask their subscribers no advance." Awnsham Churchill purchased, in 1704, the manor of
Henbury, in Dorsetshire, and represented the county town in parliament. He married Sarah, daughter of John Lownds, esq. by whom he had three sons; of whom the eldest, William Church- ill, esq. married, first, 1770, Louisa-Augusta Greville, daughter of Francis first earl Brooke and earl of Warwick, by whom he had one son, William. He married, secondly, Eliza, widow of Frederic Thomas, third earl of Strafibrd.
1728. The Pennsylvania Gazette, printed by Samuel Keimer, Philadelphia. In the following year it was purchased by Benjamin Franklin, and conducted by him for thirty years. Franklin gives the following account of the establishment of this paper: — " George Webb, having found a friend who lent him the necessary sum to buy out his time with Keimer, came one day to offer himself to us as a journeyman. We could not employ him immediately; but I foolishly told him, under the rose, that I intended shortly to publish a new periodical paper, and that we should then have work for him. My hopes of success, which I imparted to him, were foimded on the circumstance, that the only paper we had in Philadelphia at that time, and whicn Bradford printed, was a paltry thing, miserably conducted, m no respect amusing, and which yet was profit- able. I consequently supposed that a good work of this kind could not fail of success. Webb betrayed my secret to Keimer, who, to prevent me, immediately published the prospectus of a paper, that he intended to institute himself, and in which Webb was to be engaged. 1 was exasperated at this proceeding, and, with a view to counteract them, not being able at present to institute my own paper, I wrote some humorous pieces in Bradford's, under the title of the Busy Body;* and which was continued for several months by Breintnal. I hereby fixed the atten- tion of the public upon Bradford's paper; and the prospectus of Keimer, which we turned into ridicule, was treated with contempt. He began, notwithstanding, his paper; and tifter continuing it for nine months, having at most not more than ninety subscribers, he offered it to me for a mere trifle. I had for some time been ready for such an engagement; I therefore instantly took it upon myself, and in a few years it proved ex- tremely profitable to me."
1728. T7te Maryland Gazette, in German, published at Annapolis. The first book printed in the city of Annapolis, was a Collection of the Laws of Maryland, 1727, printed by William Parks. Mr. Parks was succeeded by some of the family of Green, under whom the art flou- rished considerably at Annapolis.
1728, Jan. 20. British Journal, or Censor,
1728, Jan. Monthly Chronicle, No. I, 4to. Continued till March 1732, when it was super- seded by the London Magazine, which was conducted with great reputation till 1783, when it was relinquished by the proprietors.
- A nuunucrlpt note in the Die of the Anuriccn Mer.
cwy, preserved in the Philadelphia Ubrarjr, sayi, that Franklin wrote the flve first nombers, and part of the dghtb.
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