Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/148

122 his actions indicated that he was much in sympathy with the "Sons of Liberty."

This occurred in the summer of 1775. The day following the visit to London, printers of the city were notified that they must cease to print articles in favor of our " inveterate foes, the King, Ministry and Parliament of Great Britain."

Loudon appealed to the Committee of Safety to recompense him for the loss sustained, and was appointed official printer with a salary of £200 a year, to print a weekly newspaper, in which there was to be such information as a future legislature should direct. This was the New York Packet above referred to. Doubtless it was a matter of some satisfaction to both Loudon and the patriots that they had, in destroying Tory literature, forced the royalists to assist in establishing a patriot paper.

How closely the provisional government watched over publication is shown in the action of the Committee of Safety, which on December 21, 1777, ordered Loudon to appear before them and explain why he had reprinted in his paper extracts from Gaine's New York Gazette, which contained news discouraging to the patriot cause. The following day Loudon did appear and explained that he only printed the extract to show his readers the kind of stuff that was being published in New York.

The Chairman of the Committee, on Loudon's apology, pardoned the offense, declaring that while the House of Representatives of New York had no intention of restricting the liberty of the press, they were determined "not to employ any person who shall do things inimical to the cause of American freedom."

But it is when Jones comes to tell of the attack by