Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Volume 1 (1908).pdf/392

358 stop the press until it should be given. The fiscal was also directed to look over the proof-sheets of the paper to be published on the 5th, and to suppress anything offensive in them. On the evening of the 4th these instructions were carried out. The following morning the eighteenth number of the Commercial Advertiser appeared with a notice that as the fiscal had assumed a censorship, the publisher found it his duty to discontinue the paper until he had applied for redress to his Excellency the governor and the British government.

The 7th passed without an offer of the required security, but with a notification to the public by Mr. Greig that he intended to publish an advertising sheet and an account of the facts connected with the suppression of the newspaper through the assumption of a censorship by the fiscal. On the 8th the governor directed the fiscal to put a seal upon the press, and issued a warrant requiring Mr. Greig to leave the colony within a month. The matter was regarded as of such importance that these directions were carried out on Sunday by the fiscal and a commission from the high court of justice. By some means Mr. Greig then managed to print an account of what had occurred on slips of paper, which were extensively distributed; and he also put up a notice offering his type for sale, to enable him to proceed to England to seek redress. This so irritated the governor that he issued an order to place a seal on the type, and when it was thus made unsaleable, his Excellency offered to purchase it at a valuation. To get money, Mr. Greig gave his consent, and though a fortnight later it was intimated to him by the fiscal that, unless he provoked the governor again, his quitting the colony would not be enforced, he took passage in the first vessel that sailed for England.

A few days later the type was transferred by the governor to a printer in the Gazette office named William Bridekirk, who had a small shop for the sale of books and stationery; and on the 18th of August a new paper, called the South African Chronicle and Mercantile Advertiser, appeared.