Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/53



News-Letter on Thursday. This singular arrangement lasted from May 23, 1768, till September 25, 1769. Draper, separating the twin sheets, kept alive only The News-Letter. On his death, June 6, 1774, his widow and his partner, John Boyle, conducted the paper. A little later, John Howe purchased Boyle's interest and together with Mrs. Draper ran the paper until some time between September 7 and October 13, 1775, when Howe con- ducted it alone until its suspension in 1776. The last known issue was on February 22 of that year.

END OF NEWS-LETTER

In this way The Boston News-Letter had a continuous exist- ence for practically seventy-two years. Loyal to the Home Government, it had the distinction of being the only paper pub- lished in Boston while Washington was besieging the city. That it did not survive longer was doubtless due to its malicious at- tacks upon Washington and other generals of the Revolution: the Boston patriots, aroused by their desire for independence at any cost, refused to tolerate a Tory paper which they had long dubbed The Court Gazette.