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Hunter “be the Moderator of our debate.” 70 The discourse appeared to broaden in
both content and the range of participants in this decade, representing viewpoints
more extreme, including some letters from residents well below the ruling elites.
For example, in 1751, “Philo-Bombastia” joined a debate over whether religious
dissenters should be taxed to support the Church of England. He “agreed with my
Hybernian relation to make one in a Debate out of Doors,” using the newspaper as
the vehicle of discourse. He suggested (apparently with his tongue in cheek,
attempting to demonstrate that the previous writer went too far) that the colony
should allow Catholics to immigrate and that the slaves should be freed. “Philo
Virginia” had suggested toleration of Presbyterians would encourage needed
immigrants. 71
Religious dissent appeared in the Virginia prints earlier than did political
dissent. Religious discourse thus set the stage for later political discourse. Letters in
the newspaper debating the religious leadership of the gentry, when combined with
the earlier-mentioned controversy in pamphlets and the newspapers over the
Parson’s Cause, support the conclusion that religious and social transformation
prefaced the political change to come. 72 One newspaper historian has gone further,
suggesting that it was actually Whitefield’s visit that changed the character of
colonial newspapers. Copeland argues that the coverage of the popular preacher led
to the prints becoming more local and inter-colonial in nature, and helped lead to
70 Unfortunately, only one issue and letter of this “debate” is extant. Virginia Gazette (Hunter,
March 2, 1753), 1-3. See Leo Lemay, “The Rev. Samuel Davies’ Essay Series: The Virginia
Centinel, 1756-1757,” in Essays in Early Virginia Literature Honoring Richard Beale Davis (New
York: Burt Franklin and Company, 1977), and Berg, “Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg Press,”
54-55 for more on Reverend Davies.
71 “Philo-Bombastia,” Virginia Gazette (March 20, 1752), 1. “Philo Virginia,” Ibid., (March
5, 1752), 1.
72 Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill: Published for the
Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press, 1999),
especially 6, 264-269, and 271.