Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/113

Rh tilities, Thomas would be among the first to suffer. Anticipating their action, he brought out his last number in Boston on April 6, 1775, and quietly started moving his types and press to Worcester. On the 19th of April, hostilities began, but Thomas was safely away and, on the 3rd of May, he reissued the Spy from the town of Worcester.

It is from a contemporary Loyalist writer, Thomas Jones, that one gets the best view of the journalistic activities of the New York patriots of that time. The history of Judge Jones is a far from non-partisan performance, but it abounds in spicy information. In 1752 the Whig Club was formed, by William Livingston, William Smith and John Morin Scott—all graduates of Yale, "A college remarkable for its persecuting spirit, its republican principles, its intolerance in religion and its utter aversion to Bishops and all Earthly Kings."

The club proceeded at once to attack the established church and to deride monarchy, by bringing out a weekly paper called the Independent Reflector, and later one called the Watch Tower. The latter was really the front page of Gaine's Mercury, written by William Livingston; the former was distinguished through the fact that the Reverend Aaron Burr, Smith, Livingston and Scott were the principal contributors. It was printed by one James Parker.

Jones further informs us that in the American Whig, published in 1769, the villainous statement was printed that "this country will shortly become a great and flourishing empire, independent of Great Britain; enjoying its civil and religious liberty, uncontaminated and deserted of all control from Bishops, the curse of curses, and from the subjection of all earthly kings." The General As-