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[62]

The keynote of his whole editorial career, which he struck thus clearly and unfalteringly at the very outset, was followed by a frank confession of the slender patronage which the paper was then receiving, and a hint that even the long-established and eminently respectable Herald had no very generous support:

‘We are free to acknowledge,’ the next paragraph read,1 ‘that our subscription-list is by no means bulky; and although infinitely better than Falstaff's ragged followers, yet unbecomingly stinted, considering the magnitude of the town. Perhaps in the whole United States an instance cannot be found, where, in a population of 7000, two papers are so feebly supported as in Newburyport. [Our brother of the Herald will perceive that we speak under the rosei.e., two words for ourselves, and one for him.] We will not pretend to unravel the cause, but if every little flourishing village can kindly cherish two newspapers, why may not a large commercial town afford the same encouragement?’

In the second number, the editor announced that his remarks on the Massachusetts Claim the preceeding week had brought him orders from ten indignant subscribers for the discontinuance of their papers, and he assured them that he erased their names from the list with the same pleasure which he felt in inserting more than an equal number in their place. They were doubtless Democrats (or ‘republicans,’ as they were then called) who had taken offence at his criticisms on Governors Eustis2 and Lincoln for their unsatisfactory conduct of the State's case against the National Government; and more followed their example a week or two later. ‘Neverthless, we repeat,’ said the editor, ‘our happiness at the loss of such subscribers is not a whit abated. We beg no man's patronage, and shall ever erase with the same cheerfulness that we insert the name of any individual. . . . Personal or political offence we shall studiously try to avoid—truth, never.’

The year 1826 was noteworthy as completing the first fifty years of the nation's independence; and the remarkable coincidence of the death of the two ex-Presidents

1 Free Press, Mar. 22, 1826.

2 Wm. Eustis, Levi Lincoln.

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