The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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The limits of public debate in Virginia and the growing importance of
public opinion were apparent during a major political dispute in 1753-54. Governor
Dinwiddie unilaterally imposed a very unpopular fee of one pistole for each land
patent he signed. 88 This tax and its controversy foreshadowed in many ways the
taxation disputes with Parliament of the next decade. The burgesses argued it was a
tax without the consent of the representatives of the people, arbitrarily and
unconstitutionally imposed by the governor and his council. While the fee was
eventually eliminated, Burgess Landon Carter was forced to turn to London to
print a pamphlet and to the Maryland newspaper to print a letter against the
Governor’s actions. Carter expressed his frustration with a lack of press freedom
and the inability of opponents of the pistole fee to publish their point of view in the
local newspaper: “the Press in this Colony [Virginia], either through particular
Inclination, or some other cogent Bias, in the Proprietor of it [printer William
Hunter], is, in many instances, shut against us …” Although Carter was a member
of the lower assembly, it appears that Governor Dinwiddie had more influence with
the local printer than did Carter. The governor was seemingly able to censor the
press and suppress civic discourse regarding an important public policy. 89 While not
yet a broad public discourse, but primarily dissent between groups of political elites,
the fact that political disagreement again found its way into the public prints is
significant. At least one side attempted to rally public opinion to its side. Again,
Virginians turned to the Maryland press to print what they could not get published
at home. This was not the only time that the Annapolis press printed what could
not be printed in Williamsburg; it was becoming a regular escape valve for
88 The pistole was the commonly used French name for a Spanish coin that circulated widely
in the colonies, worth £1.1.6 (or about $4), according to Theophilus Wreg [Grew], The Virginia
Almanack for the Year of our Lord God, 1767… (Williamsburg: Purdie and Dixon, 1766).
89 “A Burgess,” Maryland Gazette (Green, Oct. 24, 1754), 1-2. Jack Greene, “Landon Carter
and the Pistole Fee Dispute,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3 rd ser., vol. 14, no. 1. (Jan. 1957):
66-69. Greene identifies the author of both the newspaper letter and the pamphlet as Landon
Carter.