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

Whoever will secure the above Negroe … shall be paid Twenty Shillings.” 41
Advertisements for runaway slaves were one of the most common sights in these
Chesapeake newspapers. When the Virginia Gazette began publication, there were
sometimes no advertisements, typically a partial or full page of ads, rarely more
than a full page. Labor was always short in this colony: “The Subscriber hereof, is in
Want of Two honest Millers.” Most of the advertisements in the Williamsburg
paper were from Virginia, but occasionally an ad from North or South Carolina
would slip in, indicating some circulation in the colonies to the south. The earliest
issues had no ads from nearby Maryland. The advertisements and shipping lists were
both very closely tied to the growing commercial life in the colonies and visibly
increased in size over time.
Also seen to increase over the decades was political debate, something rarely
seen in the newspapers in the first half of the century. One unusual political
controversy was debated within the pages of the Virginia Gazette in the 1730s.
Dueling letters from former Governor Spotswood and Speaker of the House of
Burgesses John Randolph spilled out of the assembly and into the newspaper. The
acrimonious exchange was about an arms expenditure for the Brunswick militia that
apparently took Spotswood six years to complete. Randolph complained that
Spotswood took the debate public, “mak[ing] a Complaint to the World, in a
common News-Paper,” instead of keeping the inquiry within the limited confines
of the assembly. Spotswood’s original letter was published in Philadelphia’s
American Weekly Mercury, and later printed in the Virginia newspaper. Spotswood
argued that he had instructed his London agent to make the purchases and that
interference from Randolph and later misunderstandings had delayed the purchases.
Spotswood offered evidence that he requested the arms or the money returned to
the Speaker. 42 The dispute continued in several Virginia Gazettes two months later,
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., (Nov. 5, 1736), 2-3, See also Hemphill, “Influence of the Virginia Gazette,” 4-6.
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