Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:31:34.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Paragraph as Information Technology: How News Traveled in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Will Slauter
Will Slauter*
Affiliation:
Centre de recherches historiques (EA 1571)Université Paris VIII
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The newspapers of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world copied, translated, and corrected each other. Part of the technology facilitating the transmission of international news was the paragraph, a textual unit that was easily removed from one source and inserted into another. In eighteenth-century London the paragraph became the basic unit of printed news, relaying political messages and also providing the means by which these messages could be analyzed. Subject to a whole range of editorial interventions, the form and content of news reports evolved as they circulated from one place to the other. Integrating scholarship on journalism in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States, this article compares reports in French, English, and Spanish-language newspapers in order to understand the process of newsmaking. Two detailed examples from the American Revolutionary war demonstrate how political news in the Revolutionary age was a collaborative process linking printers, translators, readers, and ship captains on both sides of the Atlantic. In doing so it highlights the importance of the paragraph as an object of historical study.

Type
Atlantic History
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , June 2012 , pp. 253 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Adams, John to Livingston, Robert, 24 June 1783, in The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, vol. 2, ed. Wharton, Francis (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889), 503-4 Google Scholar.

2. Goudar, Ange, L’Espion français à Londres, ou Observations critiques sur l’Angleterre et sur les Anglois, par Mr. le chevalier de Goudar, ouvrage destiné à servir de suite à “l’Espion chinois” du même auteur, vol. 2 (London: 1779), 251-52 Google Scholar.

3. Craftsman, July, 17, 1734, cited in Black, Jeremy, “The British Press and Europe in the Early Eighteenth Century,” in The Press in English Society from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Centuries, eds. Harris, Michael and Lee, Alan J. (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1986), 65 Google Scholar.

4. Middlesex Journal; or, Chronicle of Liberty (London), September 14-16, 1769, p. 4, col. 4.

5. Daily Advertiser (New York), July 22, 1802, p. 3, col. 1.

6. Martin, Henri-Jean, La naissance du livre moderne. Mise en texte et mise en page du livre français (XIVe-XVIIe siècle) (Paris: Éditions du Cercle de la librairie, 2000), 317-26 Google Scholar.

7. On the history of the lead paragraph, see Schudson, Michael, The Power of News (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 59-64 Google Scholar. For more general information, see Barnhurst, Kevin and Nerone, John, The Form of News: A History (New York: Guilford Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

8. Without discussing the paragraph, the first studies of Franco-American exchanges nonetheless demonstrated the importance of bibliographic analyses: Echeverria, Durand, Mirage in the West: A History of the French Image of American Society to 1815 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Palmer, Robert, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959-1965)Google Scholar. For a more recent examination, see Armitage, David, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

9. For an overview, see Barker, Hannah and Burrows, Simon, eds., Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the English-language press, see: Black, Jeremy, The English Press in the Eighteenth Century (London: Croom Helm, 1987)Google Scholar; Clark, Charles, “Early American Journalism: News and Opinion in the Popular Press,” in The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World, eds. Amory, Hugh and Hall, David D. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 347-66 Google Scholar; and Warner, William B., “Communicating Liberty: The Newspapers of the British Empire as a Matrix for the American Revolution,” English Literary History 72-2 (2005): 339-61 Google Scholar. On the French-language press, see: Popkin, Jeremy D., News and Politics in the Age of Revolution: Jean Luzac’s Gazette de Leyde (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Censer, Jack R., The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Feyel, Gilles, L’annonce et la nouvelle. La presse d’information en France sous l’Ancien Régime (1630-1788) (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000)Google Scholar. Additionally, see the collective works cited throughout this article.

10. For recent studies in a similar vein, see: Thomson, Ann, Burrows, Simon, and Dziembowski, Edmond, eds., Cultural Transfers: France and Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010)Google Scholar; Dooley, Brendan, ed., The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010)Google Scholar.

11. Golinski, Jan, Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon, Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Latour, Bruno, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Alder, Ken, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World (New York: Free Press, 2002 Google Scholar).

12. Shapin, Steven, “Here and Everywhere: Sociology of Scientific Knowledge,” Annual Review of Sociology 21 (1995): 290 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Johns, Adrian, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 42 Google Scholar.

14. McKenzie, Donald F., Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 12-14 Google Scholar. I have also drawn much inspiration from the works of Darnton, Robert, in particular: “An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” American Historical Review 105-1 (2000): 1-35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), chap. 24, in which he discusses the paragraph.

15. Laufer, Roger, ed., La notion de paragraphe (Paris: Éd. du CNRS, 1985), 25 Google Scholar; Parkes, Malcolm B., Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

16. Laufer, Roger, “Les espaces du livre,” in Histoire de l’édition française. Le livre triomphant, 1660-1830, eds. Martin, Henri-Jean, Chartier, Roger, and Vivet, Jean-Pierre (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 156-72 Google Scholar; Martin, , La naissance du livre moderne, 317-26 Google Scholar.

17. Dooley, Brendan M., The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Moureau, François, ed., Répertoire des nouvelles à la main. Dictionnaire de la presse manuscrite clandestine XVIe-XVIIIe siècle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1999 Google Scholar); and Sommerville, C. John, The News Revolution in England: Cultural Dynamics of Daily Information (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

18. Haffemayer, Stéphane, L’information dans la France du XVIIe siècle. La Gazette de Renaudot de 1647 à 1663 (Paris: H. Champion, 2002), 17-18, 467-99 Google Scholar; Fraser, Peter, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State and their Monopoly of Licensed News, 1660-1688 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 4-5, 42-45 Google Scholar.

19. Haffemayer, Stéphane, “Transferts culturels dans la presse européenne au XVIIe siècle,” Le Temps des Médias 11 (2008): 25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. London News-Letter, with Foreign and Domestic Occurrences, June 12-15, 1696, p. 1.

21. Michael Harris’s study of the London press in the eighteenth century has confirmed that printers and political leaders often used the word “paragraph” to describe texts submitted to the printer or copied from other newspapers: Harris, Michael, London Newspapers in the Age of Walpole: A Study of the Origins of the Modern English Press (Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1987), 105, 122, 158-62, and 176 Google Scholar.

22. An English daily like the Public Advertiser, which had four pages of four columns each, used six compositors to set the type. One of them, Richard Penny, explained in 1774 that he worked with his five colleagues “all together–all present–take different parts–some essays–some paragraphs,” Add. 41,065, fols. 43-45, British Library.

23. Haig, Robert, The Gazetteer, 1735-1797: A Study in the Eighteenth-Century English Newspaper (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960), 158 Google Scholar; Barker, Hannah, Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion in Late Eighteenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 39 Google Scholar.

24. Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (London), March 13, 1765, p. 4, col. 1.

25. Werkmeister, Lucyle T., The London Daily Press, 1772-1792 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), 7 Google Scholar; Barker, , Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion, 20-22, 68-70 Google Scholar.

26. Brewer, John, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 224 Google Scholar; Brewer, John, A Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 38-41 Google Scholar.

27. A search of the Burney Collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century newspapers (housed by the British Library and digitized by Gale Cengage Learning) indicates that the term “paragraph writer” appeared in this collection (which is inevitably incomplete), once between 1740 and 1749 and never between 1750 and 1759. The expression appeared in six issues of various newspapers between 1760 and 1769, in eighty-seven issues between 1770 and 1779, in sixty-four issues between 1780 and 1789, and in forty issues between 1790 and 1799. Search performed January 28, 2011: http://gale.cengage.co.uk/product-highlights/history/17th--18th-century-burney-collection-newspapers-.aspx .

28. Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, December 22, 1772, p. 2, cols. 1-2.

29. See, for example, London Evening Post: September 26, 1771; August 30, 1774; November 12, 1774; and March 17, 1778. Middlesex Journal: October 8, 1771; April 16, 1772; and April 18, 1772. Public Advertiser: November 17, 1772; July 3, 1773; and November 3, 1773. Morning Chronicle: May 11, 1773; December 6, 1773; December 25, 1773; January 2, 1775; April 4, 1776; June 26, 1776; and March 30, 1778. Morning Post: August 31, 1776; March 8, 1777; and September 29, 1778. Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser: March 14, 1776; May 13, 1778; May 16, 1778; June 2, 1778; October 17, 1778; and November 30, 1779.

30. von Archenholz, Johann Wilhelm, A Picture of England Containing a Description of the Laws, Customs, and Manners of England ... (Dublin: P. Byrne, 1790), 42 Google Scholar, cited by Barker, , Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion, 49 Google Scholar.

31. Literary Liberty Considered: In a Letter to Henry Sampson Woodfall (London: 1774), 16-17.

32. In the Gazetteer’s account book, the entry for August 30, 1787 reads “paid for a paragraph,” 6 pence. C 104/68, vol. E, fol. 22, National Archives, Kew (PRO).

33. When the Earl of Sandwich sent a paragraph to the Public Advertiser in 1773, he spoke of himself in the third person, using the voice of an anonymous “paragraph writer”: “We hear that the Earl of Sandwich has caused an action to be brought against the printer of the London Evening Post of the 2nd of February, in order to vindicate his honour against the infamous falsehood contained in that paper.” Sandwich to H. S. Woodfall, 3 February 1773, Add. 27, 780, fol. 21, British Library, London.

34. Cited in Barker, Newspapers, Politics, and Public Opinion, 44.

35. John Adams Diary, 3 September 1769, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/ .

36. Steele, Ian K., The English Atlantic, 1675-1740: An Exploration of Communication and Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 Google Scholar).

37. For example, Courrier de l’Europe, January 7, 1783. On this gazette, see: Gunnar, and von Proschwitz, Mavis, Beaumarchais et le Courier de l’Europe. Documents inédits ou peu connus (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1990 Google Scholar); Burrows, Simon, “The Courier de l’Europe as an Agent of Cultural Transfer (1776-1791),” in Thomson, Ann, Burrows, Simon, and Dziembowski, Edmond, eds., Cultural Transfers: France and Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2010), 189-201 Google Scholar.

38. Barker, and Burrows, , eds., Press, Politics and the Public Sphere; Horst Dippel, Germany and the American Revolution, 1770-1800: A Sociohistorical Investigation of Late Eighteenth-Century Political Thinking (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972; repr. 1977)Google Scholar; Krebs, Roland and Moes, Jean, eds., La révolution américaine vue par les périodiques de langue allemande, 1773-1783 (Paris: Didier érudition, 1992)Google Scholar; Venturi, Franco, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776-1789 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)Google Scholar, vol. 1, chap. 1; and Larriba, Elisabel, Le public de la presse en Espagne à la fin du XVIIIe siècle, 1781-1808 (Paris: H. Champion, 1998 Google Scholar).

39. Courier de l’Europe, October 22, 1776, p. 4, cols. 1-2.

40. Rétat, Pierre, “Les gazettes. De l’événement à l’histoire,” in Études sur la presse au XVIIIe siècle, eds. Duranton, Henri et al. (Lyon: Centre d’études du XVIIIe siècle de l’université de Lyon II, 1978)Google Scholar, 3:37; Yardeni, Myriam, “Journalisme et histoire contemporaine à l’époque de Bayle,” History and Theory 12-2 (1973): 209 Google Scholar.

41. Labrosse, Claude and Rétat, Pierre, “Le texte de la gazette,” in Les gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle), eds. Duranton, Henri et al. (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’université de Saint-Étienne, 1992), 136 Google Scholar.

42. First example: Independent Chronicle, January 2, 1783; New Hampshire Gazette, January 4, 1783. Second example: London Chronicle, November 11-13, 1777 and November 15-18, 1777; Gazette de France, November 24, 1777; and Gazeta de Madrid, December 9, 1777.

43. Boston Post Boy, June 8, 1761, p. 2, col. 1.

44. The same paragraph appears word for word on page 306 of the Public Ledger on March 31, 1761 and undoubtedly in other London newspapers.

45. Gazeta de Madrid, September 17, 1776, p. 335; Gazette d’Utrecht, supplement, October 11, 1776, p. 1; and London Chronicle, October 12-15, 1776, p. 366. The Utrecht version would later be copied by the Courier de l’Europe, October 18, 1776, p. 1, col. 3. Another French translation appeared in the Gazette de Leyde, supplement, October 11, 1776, p. 1. There were undoubtedly other versions.

46. Gazette de France, October 14, 1776, p. 375; London Chronicle, October 17-19, 1776, p. 382; Courier de l’Europe, October 22, 1776, p. 1, col. 1; Gazette d’Utrecht, October 22, 1776, p. 1; Gazeta de Madrid, October 29, 1776, p. 377; and Gazette de Leyde, supplement, October 22, 1776, p. 1.

47. Reynaud, Denis, “La politique des rubriques,” in La Gazette d’Amsterdam. Miroir de l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Rétat, Pierre (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2001), 223-30 Google Scholar. Additionally, see Censer, , The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment, 17-19 Google Scholar.

48. Moureau, François, “ Les Mémoires Secrets de Bachaumont, Le Courier du Bas-Rhin et les ‘Bulletinistes’ parisiens,” in L’année 1768 à travers la presse traitée par ordinateur, eds. Varloot, Jean and Jansen, Paule (Paris: Éd. du CNRS, 1981), 58-79 Google Scholar; Popkin, , News and Politics, 73-74 Google Scholar.

49. Infelise, Mario, “Le marché des informations à Venise au XVIIe siècle,” in Gazettes et information politique sous l’Ancien Régime, eds. Duranton, Henri et Rétat, Pierre (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 1999), 117-128 Google Scholar; Vivo, Filippo de, “Paolo Sarpi and the Uses of Information in Seventeenth-Century Venice,” in News Networks in Seventeenth-Century Britain and Europe, ed. Raymond, Joad (London: Routledge, 2006), 35-50 Google Scholar.

50. Swinton to Launay, London, 10 May 1780, ms. 12451, fols. 212-213v, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris.

51. Moureau, François, La plume et le plomb. Espaces de l’imprimé et du manuscrit au siècle des Lumières (Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2007), 23 Google Scholar and chap. 7.

52. Ms. français 22085, fols. 11-12 (pièce 22-23), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

53. Fraser, , The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State, 36-46 and 52 Google Scholar; Haffemayer, , L’information dans la France du XVIIe siècle, 154-55 and 484-85 Google Scholar; and Feyel, , L’annonce et la nouvelle, 886 Google Scholar.

54. Recio, Luis Miguel Enciso, La Gaceta de Madrid y el Mercurio histórico y político, 1756-1781 (Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, 1957), 33 Google Scholar.

55. Clark, Charles and Wetherell, Charles, “The Measure of Maturity: The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1728-1765,” The William &Mary Quarterly 46-2 (1989): 294-97 Google Scholar.

56. Daniel, Marcus, Scandal &Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009 Google Scholar).

57. See, for example, the paragraph “From the National Gazette” found in the Gazette of the United States, April 18, 1792, p. 407.

58. Kielbowicz, Richard, News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700-1860s (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1989)Google Scholar; John, Richard, Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Steffen, Charles, “Newspapers for Free: The Economies of Newspaper Circulation in the Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 23-3 (2003): 381-419 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. Waldstreicher, David, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 18, 34, and 109-10 Google Scholar; Pasley, Jeffrey, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 49-50, 173-74, 208, and 330-31 Google Scholar.

60. Ascoli, Peter, “American Propaganda in the French Language Press During the American Revolution,” in La révolution américaine et l’Europe, eds. Fohlen, Claude and Godechot, Jacques (Paris: Éd. du CNRS, 1979), 291-305 Google Scholar.

61. Cohn, Ellen et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959-2011), 37:184-97, 205-7, and 268 Google Scholar.

62. Fabre, Madeleine, “Affaires de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique,” in Dictionnaire des journaux, 1600-1789, ed. Sgard, Jean (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1991), 1:5-10 Google Scholar.

63. Cohn, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 27:155-56 Google Scholar.

64. Cited in Nabarra, Alain, “Courier de Boston,” in Dictionnaire des journaux, 1600-1789, ed. Sgard, Jean (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1991), 1:275-77 Google Scholar.

65. Courrier de l’Amérique, December 4, 1792.

66. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers,” 61-63; Daniel, Scandal &Civility, 45-48.

67. John Adams to the President of Congress, Paris, 8 September 1783, in The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, vol. 2, ed. Francis Wharton (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889), 6:681-83.

68. Blair, Ann, “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload ca. 1550- 1700,” Journal of the History of Ideas 64-1 (2003): 27 Google Scholar.

69. General Advertiser, October 25, 1790, cited by Daniel, Scandal &Civility, 117.

70. On composition, see Gaskell, Philip, A New Introduction to Bibliography (New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, 2006), 40-56 Google Scholar; Rychner, Jacques, “Le travail de l’atelier,” Histoire de l’édition française. Le livre triomphant, 1660-1830, eds. Martin, Henri-Jean, Chartier, Roger, and Vivet, Jean-Pierre (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 46-70 Google Scholar.

71. Journalistic plagiarism was noticed by French readers as well. In 1777, for example, a reader accused the Journal historique et politique of having copied the Courier de l’Europe “word for word” without any reference. “Among you Journalists, plagiarism is to a certain extent the norm, and I would not have the slightest objection if it were exercised in good faith; but why this affectation to reprint your Gazette under the title Journal, and then give excerpts of all that seems worth collecting from the foreign Gazettes without mentioning the Courier de l’Europe!” See Courier de l’Europe July 18, 1777, pp. 111-12. For general information on plagiarism, see: Johns, Adrian, “The Ambivalence of Authorship in Early Modern Natural Philosophy,” in Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science, eds. Biagioli, Mario and Galison, Peter (New York: Routledge, 2003), 68-90 Google Scholar; Kewes, Paulina, ed., Plagiarism in Early Modern England (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 Google Scholar).

72. Evening Post, copied by Aurora General Advertiser, January 19, 1805, p. 2.

73. See Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers,” 32.

74. On April 27, 1901, the San Jose Mercury News republished the following small paragraph, citing the Chicago News: “‘Credit to whom credit is due,’ is an old saying that the scissors editor frequently overlooks.”

75. Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 25:59.

76. Courier du Bas-Rhin, October 29, 1777, p. 707 and November 1, 1777, pp. 715-16.

77. Courrier d’Avignon, October 24, 1777, p. 344; Morning Chronicle, November 8, 1777, p. 2, col. 2; London Chronicle, November 6-8, 1777, p. 454; and London Evening Post, November 6-8, 1777, p. 3, col. 2.

78. Public Advertiser, November 18, 1777, p. 2, col. 3; London Evening Post, November 15-18, 1777, p. 3, col. 1.

79. Gazette de France, November 28, 1777, pp. 479-80; Courrier d’Avignon, December 9, 1777, p. 394; Journal historique et politique, December 10, 1777, p. 407; and Gazeta de Madrid, December 16, 1777, pp. 498-99.

80. The phrase was used by Jonathan Williams Jr. in a letter to William Temple Franklin, 27 July 1780, WTF, vol. 102, fol. 88, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia.

81. Morning Post, November 3, 1777, p. 2, col. 1; Morning Chronicle, November 3, 1777, p. 3, col. 2; and London Chronicle, November 1-4, 1777, p. 438.

82. New York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, September 22, 1777, p. 2, col. 1.

83. See the November 4, 1777 issues of London Chronicle, London Evening Post, Morning Chronicle, Morning Post, Public Advertiser, and Gazetteer.

84. London Evening Post, November 11-13, 1777, p. 3, col. 1; Gazette d’Utrecht, November 18, 1777, p. 4; Gazette de Leyde, supplement, November 11, 1777; Journal historique et politique, November 20, 1777, p. 267 and November 30, 1777, p. 322; and Courrier d’Avignon, November 28, 1777, p. 382.

85. See Public Advertiser, November 3, 1777, p. 3, col. 3.

86. Courrier de l’Europe, November 7, 1777, pp. 366-67; Public Advertiser, November 5, 1777, p. 2, cols. 1-2.

87. Morning Post (November 6, 1777), p. 2, col. 2; London Evening Post (November 4-6, 1777), p. 3, col. 2.

88. Lynch, Jack, Deception and Detection in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008 Google Scholar).

89. Slauter, Will, “Forward-Looking Statements: News and Speculation in the Age of the American Revolution,” Journal of Modern History 81 (2009): 759-92 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90. For example, Pennsylvania Packet, September 11, 1777; Pennsylvania Evening Post, September 13, 1777; Boston Gazette, September 22, 1777; and New York Gazette; and the Weekly Mercury, September 22, 1777.

91. Gazette de Leyde, November 11, 14, and 18, 1777; Courrier de l’Europe, November 7, 1777, p. 367; Journal historique et politique, November 20, 1777, pp. 264-68; Courrier d’Avignon, November 25, 1777, p. 378; Gazette d’Utrecht, November 18, 1777; and Gazette d’Amsterdam, November 21, 1777.

92. Révolutions de Paris, October 12, 1789 and October 19, 1789.

93. Burrows, Simon, “The Cosmopolitan Press, 1759-1815,” in Press, Politics and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760-1820, eds. Barker, Hannah and Burrows, Simon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 23-47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94. Courrier de l’Europe, November 7, 1777, p. 367; Courier du Bas-Rhin, November 15, 1777, p. 753; Gazette d’Utrecht, November 18, 1777, p. 4; Journal historique et politique, November 20, 1777, pp. 265-68; Courrier d’Avignon, November 21, 1777, p. 376; and Journal Encyclopédique, December 15, 1777, p. 563.

95. See Censer, The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment, chap. 4; Charles, Shelly, “Sur l’écriture du présent,” in Les gazettes européennes de langue française (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle), eds. Duranton, Henri et al. (Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’université de Saint-Étienne, 1992), 177-85 Google Scholar.