known as Draper's Gazette, was paid liberally, but no matter how well paid the contributors were, the Tory papers were unable to obtain a large circulation. The two most important writers were Thomas Hutchinson himself and Jonathan Sewall, the Attorney-General of Massachusetts, the latter being the most forceful contributor to the Royalist papers. Hutchinson, a man who ^undoubtedly loved his country, a man of unquestioned ability, was almost a match for Adams. He drew to him also Daniel Leonard, one of the ablest writers of the time.
When we come to the Boston Gazette itself, it is well to remember that, though the newspapers were small in size and poorly printed, they exerted a powerful influence; their appeals reached practically every threshold, and through them "the sense of national life was becoming intense and vivid." The mind of America at this time was very keen. Montesquieu, Priestley, Bacon, Bolingbroke, Milton, Locke and Harrington were quoted and known almost in the wilderness, and Edmund Burke was able to say "I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England."[1]
History must ever be grateful that Benjamin Edes and John Gill were bold and fearless publishers. The Stamp Act and the Boston Massacre, the Tea Tax and the closing of the port of Boston, the conduct of the British soldiers and many oppressive measures against the colonies were handled in this paper in a way to arouse the indignation of the colonists and to make patriots of them. The Gazette was "a great power in the community. Rarely in our history has a single newspaper met a difficult crisis, maintained its principles with more
- ↑ House of Commons, March 22, 1775.
