Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/57

Rh "set the tune" for twenty-four years, found that he was wandering off the key and suggested that Josiah Franklin take his place in church.

James Franklin's trip to London had done much for him and much for journalism, for he came back from a London that was full of politics and journalistic combat. The influence of these early journalistic masters was broad and deep, as we learn from Benjamin Franklin's biography, wherein he states that he taught himself to write excellent English prose by modeling his style upon that of Addison and Steele; an evidence indeed that the colonies were ripe for better journalism, when the son of a soap-maker, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, was imitating the pioneer newspaper stylists.

The Boston Gazette made little impression on the life of the colony, except as it stirred up a controversy with the old postmaster, Campbell, who continued to abuse Brooker—possibly to the merriment of the community but with no advantage to either gentleman, for in a few months Brooker lost both the postmastership and the Gazette, the latter passing from postmaster to postmaster, apparently as the property of the office, or rather as a perquisite of the position.

Between 1719 and 1739, the Boston Gazette was owned and conducted by no less than five postmasters. Each of these, of course, was entitled to give the printing of the paper to whomsoever he would. When the paper passed into the hands of Brooker's successor, the printing was taken away from James Franklin. The young printer, with his London ideas and London training, and with the intelligence that was evidently a family possession, determined to start a paper of his own and, on August 7, 1721, there appeared the first number of the New England Courant.