It Consists Of Four
Folio Pages, Two Columns To Each Page, With The Exception Of The
'Printer's Address To The
Public,' which takes up the full width of
the page, and is written in French and English, the matter
In both
languages being the same, with the exception of a Masonic
advertisement, which is in English only. In the address, accuracy,
freedom and impartiality are promised in the conduct of the paper. The
design of the publishers includes 'a view of foreign affairs and
political transactions from which a judgment may be formed of the
interests and connections of the several powers of Europe'; and care
is to be taken 'to collect the transactions and occurrences of our
mother-country, and to introduce every remarkable event, uncommon
debates, extraordinary performance and interesting turn of affairs
that shall be thought to merit the notice of the reader as matter of
entertainment, or that can be of service to the publick as inhabitants
of an English colony.' Attention is also to be given to the affairs of
the American colonies and West India Islands; and, in the absence of
foreign intelligence, the reader is to be presented with 'such
originals, in prose and verse, as will please the fancy and instruct
the judgment. And,' the address continues, 'here we beg leave to
observe that we shall have nothing so much at heart as the support of
virtue and morality and the noble cause of liberty. The refined
amusements of literature and the pleasing veins of well-pointed wit
shall also be considered as necessary to the collection; interspersed
with other chosen pieces and curious essays extracted from the most
celebrated authors; so that, blending philosophy with politicks,
history, &c., the youth of both sexes will be improved, and persons of
all ranks agreeably and usefully entertained.'
"As an inducement to advertisers, it is held out that the circulation
of the Gazette will extend, not only through the British colonies,
but also through the West India Islands and the trading ports of Great
Britain and Ireland. The address very sensibly concludes with the
following remarks, which, however, cast a shade over the rather
tedious prolegomena: 'Our intention to please the whole, without
offence to any individual, will be better evinced by our practice than
by writing volumes on this subject. This one thing we beg may be
believed, that party prejudice or private scandal will never find a
place in this paper.'
"With this large promise began the first Canadian newspaper on the
21st of June, 1764.
"The news in the first number is all foreign. There are despatches
from Riga, St. Petersburg, Rome, Hermanstadt, Dantzic, Vienna,
Florence and Utrecht, the dates ranging from the 8th of March to the
11th of April. There are also items of news from New York, bearing
date the 3rd, and from Philadelphia the 7th of May. News-collecting
was then a slow process, by land as well as by sea.
"Of the despatches, the following is of historical importance:
'London, March 10th.
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