Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/48

22 May, that even though suppressed as a publisher, Harris was still a private purveyor of news, for he brought the information that Captain Leisler and Mr. Millburn had been executed in New York. The same year a partnership was formed with John Allen and a printing shop of their own was set up. Evidently he was working back into the graces of the authorities, for, a short time after, he was made the official printer and ordered to print the laws "that we the people may be informed thereof."

But the spirit of Harris could not be contented in the colonies so long as the mother country afforded greater prospects for safe political activity to one of his ardent temperament. Though the London Gazette was the only paper published while the licensing act was in force, the keen interest in the news was satisfied at the coffee-houses in London and by the news-letters throughout the country. The official paper was edited by a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, who published nothing but the dullest doings of the government. The censorship law expired on May 25, 1695, and within a fortnight thereafter, Harris, back in London, was once more on the ground with the announcement that the Intelligence Domestic and Foreign that had been suppressed by tyranny, fourteen years before, would again appear.