Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/67

THE FIRST NEWSPAPER OF AMERICA. 53 must be anxious to know, from Time to Time, the State of our Affairs at Home and in the Colonies, I shall therefore take Pains to furnish my Readers with the most material News which can be collected from every Part of the World, particularly from Great Britian and its Dependencies; and great Care will be taken that no Facts of Importance shall be published but such as are well attested, and these shall be as particular as may be necessary.

But besides the Common News, whenever there shall be Room, and as there may be Occasion, this Paper will contain Extracts from the best Authors on Points of the most material Knowledge, moral religious or political Essays and other such Speculations as may have a Tendency to improve the mind, afford any Help to Trader, Manufacturers, Husbandry, and other useful Arts, and promote the public Welfare in any Respect.

As the Press always claims Liberty in free Countries, it is presumed that none will be offended if this Paper discovers the Spirit of Freedom, which so remarkably prevails in the English Nation. But as Liberty ought not to be abused, no Encouragement will be given by the Publisher to any Thing profane, obscene, or tending to encourage Immorality, nor to such Writings as are produced by private Pique, and filled with personal Reflections and insolent scurrilous Language. It is a great Abuse of good Sense as well as good Manners to employ those means which may be serviceable to the best Purposes, in the service of Vice or any thing Indecent, or which may give just Occasion of Offence to any Persons of true Taste and Judgment. And therefore proper Caution will be always used to avoid all reasonable Grounds of Complaint on that Score.

The Publisher will esteem it a great Favour to be well supplied by Correspondents of Genius and generous Sentiments, with such Speculations or Essays as may be pleasing and instructive to the Public, agreeable to the design of this Paper, and acknowledge himself obliged to any Gentlemen who will take the Pains to communicate to him any good Intelligence, provided they be sent free from Charge.

Then follows the articles which he calls "the most material by yesterday's mail." News from Antigua and Halifax, describing a naval engagement between the French and English, together with considerable privateering, and the capture of a French prize sloop.

News was slow in traveling, especially by hand, for not until Sept. 23, did news arrive from Kittanning, "a town of our Indian Enemies in Ohio, twenty-five miles above Fort Duquesne. Col. Armstrong, with about eight hundred Provincial Troops, gained, on the 3d inst., the advanced party at the Beaver Dam, and when within six miles of Kittanning, surprised the Indians and began the fight at daybreak. Capt. Jacobs, the Chief of the Indians, it is said, defended his house bravely, but they were finely overcome, the houses were set on fire, and as they refused all quarter none was given. "Capt. Jacob, in getting out of a window, was shot and scalped, as also his Squaw, and a Lad called the King's son," &c. It gives one a curious feeling to discover that the scalping business was not confined to the Indians.

The news of Capt. Armstrong's party grimly concludes by the remark that "it is allowed to be the greatest Blow the Enemy have received since the War began, and if well followed may soon make them weary of continuing it."

We, their descendants, one hundred and twenty-six years later, can testify that the course of Capt. Armstrong has been, indeed, well followed.

Under this head we learn that on Wednesday evening, Capt. Dwight came up in the prize ship Chavalmarin, Mons. Despararius, late Master, taken the 31st of August by the Privateer Brig Prince George, Capt. King, of this port.