a half-printed and half-written news-letter called the Flying Post, which declared that any gentleman who had "mind to oblige his country friend or correspondent with this account of publick affairs" might purchase it for twopence and on the blank half of the sheet "write his own private business or the material news of the day." [1]
While the American mind, as developed in the colonies, was in advance of the contemporary culture of Europe in the science of politics,[2] the homogeneous character of the colonists, or rather their practical unanimity in matters of religion, led to an absence of the acrimonious political debate that marked England at that time, although the example of the mother country was to bear bitter fruit.
Little demand for political discussion existed in America, but there was a great demand for news, and since there were but few coffee-houses, such as London contained, it was natural that the postmaster should be the central figure for the trade in gossip.
The first postmaster of Boston was Richard Fairbanks, who in 1639 was officially declared to be the person at whose house all letters were to be delivered.[3] The smallness of the compensation, however, led the postmasters to devise various means by which their slight income might be augmented, so that in 1703 we find John Campbell—an active citizen of Boston, interested in the first charitable society of the country,—[4] adding to his meager income by supplying the colonists outside of Boston with the news and gossip that came to him as postmaster. Nine of these letters, addressed to Governor Winthrop of
