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

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of the tax until the colony’s General Assembly agreed upon it. Although the two
accounts are not exact enough to suggest the same author, neither report is
supportive of the crowd’s action. The newspaper account is neutral enough that
Fauquier included a copy of the newspaper in his letter to his London superiors, to
detail the ending of the affair. It appears clear that Royle was politically allied with
the royal governor, a situation that was generating unrest among those Virginians
who were more critical of the British government. 32
Changing Virginia Press & Discourse
This new tax placed the Virginia printer in the middle of a power struggle.
Exploring the printed material and the few financial records available reveals much
about potential political restrictions on the content, while at the same time
uncovering a wider dissemination of a broader range of views. As printer, Royle was
at both the center of growing commercial activity and the intellectual heart of the
colony. The town was the market hub for a region without an urban center, and his
shop was a retail outlet for the entire colony. The printing office journals, or
daybooks, exist only for part of 1750-52 and 1764-66, but they indicate a
substantial trade in books, stationery, business forms, legal blanks, almanacs,
newspapers, postal services, playing cards, and other miscellaneous items. An
important income source for this Virginia tradesman came from printing
government documents. 33 The government of the colony paid Parks and his
32 Francis Fauquier to Board of Trade, Nov. 3, 1765, handwritten transcript in Manuscript
Reading Room, Library of Congress, Great Britain PRO CO 5, Container v. 1331 [Public
Record Office] 97- 106[137-148], Virginia Gazette Supplement (Royle, Oct. 25, 1765), 1-4. From
Library of Congress Photostat, Newspaper and Current Periodical room, box 31, folder 34. On
the back the original source is noted as “CO 5.1345 Colonial Office, London, Series 5, vol. 1345.”
On the top of page one is penned in, “Lt. Gov. Fauquier, of the 24 th Nov. 1765.” Note the
dateline of the Mercer story is Oct. 31, so despite the newspaper’s date, it was likely printed
around Nov. 1, 1765.
33 William Hunter’s, Printing Office Journal (University of Virginia Libraries, Department of
Special Collections, vol. 1, 1750-1752) and Joseph Royle and Alexander Purdie’s Printing Office
Journal (University of Virginia Libraries, Department of Special Collections, vol. 2, 1764-1766).