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

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Day,” with a special type font to emphasize the deadliness. A story on the same
page noted that while the stamps had arrived in Boston, threats of public action
against them led the heavily-guarded vessel to not
bring them into the port. The hated stamps were
instead kept in a fortress in the harbor: “ ‘Tis said those
detestable Stamps are to be lodged at the Castle, and
there to remain till further Orders from Home, there
being at present no Demand here for such a
superfluous Commodity.” 11 Green continued to
publish supplemental issues with such names as, “Third
and Last Supplement to the Maryland Gazette, of the Tenth Instant” and “An
Apparition of the Maryland Gazette which is not dead, but only sleepeth” 12 On the
bottom of the first page on one issue, Green printed a skull and crossbones outlined
in a thick, black border, with the headline, “The Fatal STAMP.” 13 Only one issue
of the Virginia Gazette from this entire year is extant, and while it included much on
the unpopularity of the tax, it contained none of the theatrics included in the
Maryland Gazettes.
The Stamp Act put Virginia printer Joseph Royle and all colonial printers in
an untenable political and financial bind. It forced them to decide to either stop
printing, print without stamps and face prosecution, or attempt to get expensive
stamped paper and face angering numerous critics who opposed any payment of the
tax. For newspapers, the tax might have only added a direct cost of four percent.
The cost of pamphlets would have escalated even more, with a tax of up to one
shilling for each four pages on a document that typically would initially cost less
11 Ibid., (Oct. 10, 1765), 1.
12 Ibid., (Jonas Green, Oct. 31, 1765, and Dec. 10, 1765.) William Rind was no longer listed
as partner.
13 Ibid., (Oct. 10, 1765), 1.