Thus ever has power been arrayed against the liberty of the press; and thus ever have the people been ready to sustain it.
Soon after the relinquishment of his paper by Bradford, it was resumed by James Parker, under the double title of The New York Gazette and Weekly Post Boy. In 1753, ten years afterward, Parker took a partner by the name of William Wayman. But neither of the partners, nor both of them together, possessed the indomitable spirit of John Philip Zengar. Having in March, 1756, published an article reflecting upon the conduct of the people of Ulster and Orange counties, the Assembly, entertaining a high regard for the majesty of the people, took offence thereat, and both the editors were taken into custody by the sergeant-at-arms. What the precise nature of the insult upon the sovereign people of those counties was, does not appear. But the editors behaved in a craven manner. They acknowledged their fault, begged pardon of the House, and paid the costs of the proceedings; in addition to all which, they gave up the name of the author. He proved to be none other than the Rev. Hezekiah Watkins, a missionary to the county of Ulster, residing at Newburgh. The reverend gentleman was accordingly arrested, brought to New York, and voted guilty of a high misdemeanor and contempt of the authority of the House. Of what persuasion was this Mr. Watkins, does not appear. But neither Luther, nor Calvin, nor Hugh Latimer would have betrayed the right of free discussion as he did, by begging the pardon of the House, standing to receive a reprimand, paying the fees, and promising to be more circumspect in future, for the purpose of obtaining his discharge.
This case affords the most singular instance of the exercise of the doubtful power of punishing for what are called contempts, on record. A court has unquestionably a right to protect itself from indignity, while in session; and so has a legislative body, although the power of punishing for such an offence, without trial by jury, is now gravely questioned. But for a legislative body to extend the mantle of its protection over its constituency in such a matter, is an exercise of power of which it is difficult to find a parallel. Sure it is that a people, then or now, who would elect such members to the Legislature deserve nothing else than contempt.
The fourth paper established in New York was called the Evening Post. It was commenced by Henry De Forest in 1746. It was remarkable chiefly for stupidity, looseness of grammar, and worse orthography, and died before it was able to go alone.
In 1752 the New York Mercury was commenced, and in 1763 the title was changed to the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury. This paper was established and published by Hugh Gaine, at the sign of the Bible and Crown, Hanover square. It was conducted with taste and ability, and became the best newspaper in the Colonies. In 1763, Gaine was arraigned by the Assembly for publishing a part of its proceedings without permission, and withal incorrectly. He was a gentleman of a kind spirit, and never had the power to withhold an apology when it was asked. He accordingly apologized, was reprimanded, and discharged.
As the storm of war drew on in 1775, the Mercury contained a series of patriotic papers, under the signature of the Watch Tower. But as the British forces drew near to New York, the patriotism of Gaine began to cool; and during the whole course of the Revolutionary war, his Mercury afforded very accurate indications of the state of the contest. When with the Whigs, Hugh Gaine was a Whig. When with the Royalists, he was loyal. When the contest was doubtful, equally doubtful were the politics of Hugh Gaine. In short, he was the most perfect pattern of the genuine non-committal. On the arrival of the British army he removed to Newark for a while; but soon returned to the city and published a paper devoted to the cause of the Crown. His course was a fruitful theme for the wags of the day; and at the peace, a poetical petition from Gaine to the Senate of the State, setting forth his life and conduct, was got up with a good deal of talent and humor. His paper ceased with the war.
Another paper, called the New York Gazette, was commenced by Wayman, the former associate of Parker. In 1766, Wayman was arrested for a contempt of the Assembly, upon no other charge than that of two typographical errors in printing the speech of Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of the Colony. One of these errors consisted in printing the word NEVER for ever; and the other was the omission of the word NO, by reason of which the meaning of the sentence was reversed. Wayman protested that it was a mere inadvertency; but so tenacious were legislators in those days of 'privilege,' that an investigation was instituted; but in the end the transgressor was discharged from 'durance vile,' on condition of acknowledging his fault, asking pardon, and promising to behave more circumspectly for the future.
The Assembly, however, was more rigid in this case, from the suspicion entertained that one of the errors was intentional; but such was clearly not the fact.
Nothing can be more annoying to authors and publishers than errors of the press; and yet those who are unskilled in the art of printing, can scarcely conceive the difficulty of avoiding them. The art of proof reading with perfect accuracy is an high and difficult attainment. To arrive at ordinary accuracy in a daily newspaper, requires the reading and correction of at least two proofs; and even then an editor, who has not become case hardened, by long practice and long endurance, will often be shocked at the transformation of sense into nonsense, or the murdering of one of his happiest conceits, or the plucking of the point out of one of his neatest paragraphs, by a typographical error.
In the early stages of the art of printing, typographical errors were far more numerous than in books of modern execution, where there is a real effort to attain to ordinary accuracy. It was then very common for a volume of ordinary size to contain page upon page of errata at the close. One of the most remarkable instances of this kind was the curious treatise of Edward Leigh, 'On Religion and Learning,' published in 1656. At the close of the work were two folio pages of corrections in very minute characters. The author himself complains as follows: 'We have no Plantier or Stevens (two celebrated printers of another day) amongst us; and it is no easy task to specify the chiefest errata; false interpunctions there are too many; here a letter wanting, there a letter too much; a syllable too much, one letter for another; words joined, which should be severed; words misplaced, chronological mistakes, &c.'
Leigh's case, however, was not so hard as that of a monk, who wrote and published the 'Anatomy of the Mass,' in 1561. The work itself contained only one hundred and seventy-two pages, to which were added FIFTEEN pages of errata. The pious monk wrote an apology for these inaccuracies, which, if true, proved that his case was indeed a cruel one clearly proving, moreover, that even if the devil had originally assisted Doctor Faustus and Gutenberg in the invention, his brimstone majesty very soon became sick of his bargain. The monk avers that he wrote the work to circumvent the artifices of Satan, and that the devil, ever on the alert, undertook to circumvent him. For this purpose Satan, in the first place, caused the MS. to be drenched in a kennel, until it was rendered comparatively illegible; and, in the second place, he compelled the printers to perpetrate more typographical blunders than had ever before been made in a book of no greater magnitude. But the malice of Lucifer did not end here. He compelled the priest to act under his influence while making the corrections!