Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/145

Rh of them to more remote places and interrupted or entirely stopped the publication of others.

The papers at that time were not by any means evenly distributed; for instance, Maryland, Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia, together could boast of but one more journal than Pennsylvania, and only three more than little Massachusetts. New Hampshire had only the Gazette, while in Rhode Island there were both a Gazette and a Mercury.

Early in the war the British General, Gage, recognized the necessity of putting before the public the encouraging aspect of the British cause. Immediately after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he sent to Cadwallader Colden, Lieutenant-Governor of New York, his own account of these engagements, requesting him to have them printed in some New York paper. Colden's experience is best told in his own language:

"Immediately upon the receipt of your first account of the facts of the 19th of April, I sent it to Gaine to be published in his paper. He desired leave, if asked, to say from whom he got it. I sent my son to tell him he might, and if he chose, might add that I received it from headquarters, which entirely satisfied him, and he promised to publish it on Monday. This was on Saturday evening. On Sunday he returned the copy and let me know that he could not insert it in his paper."

When the British took possession of New York the Whig printers, including Gaine, had to leave and there was no newspaper published. General Howe saw the necessity of keeping the citizens informed and of putting the best face on the British cause, and authorized Ambrose Serle to issue a newspaper and to use Gaine's establishment for that purpose. The issue of September 30th of