The theatre found less favor, although its founder, David Douglass, brought with him the recommendation of the Governor and Council of Virginia. His first application for a licence in Newport failed; a second was more successful; and this pioneer of the American stage drew for a while good houses. He moved to Providence and built a permanent theatre. Many came from Boston to seek an enjoyment which they could not find at home. But the current soon turned. The Bostonians met with a cold reception, and the short-lived pleasure was condemned as a nuisance. A newspaper was a want more generally acknowledged. Hitherto there had been none in the Colony. But in the summer of 1758 the _Newport Mercury_ was established, and has held its ground with varying fortunes to our own day. Four years later William Goddard established in Providence the _Providence Gazette and Country Journal_. Among its first contributors was Governor Hopkins, who began for it his "Account of Providence," but called to other subjects by the excitement of the times he never went beyond the first chapter. Enough, however, was published to call out several insulting letters from Massachusetts. Times were daily becoming more and more critical. The Board of Trade insisted upon the rigorous enforcement of the navigation act. The colonial governments passed the necessary laws but could not enforce them. It was then that writs of assistance were first called for, and from this call arose that trial so celebrated in colonial annals, the first mutterings of the tempest which was at hand. James Otis became a familiar name throughout the colonies. For thirty-four years the Quaker diplomatist, Richard Partridge, had faithfully and skillfully served Rhode Island as her agent in London. In 1759 mindful to the last of the interests of the Colony, he wrote on his death bed to recommend a brother Quaker, Joseph Sherwood, for his successor. In this same year freemasonry was introduced, a charter was granted by the Assembly with permission to raise twenty-four hundred dollars by lottery for building a hall in Newport. We have seen how early attention was called to the subject of fires. In 1759 the immediate action at fires was placed under the direction of five presidents of firewards, three of whom were elected at annual town meetings with authority to blow up buildings if necessary in order "to stop the progress of the flames." These details though minute, serve to show how far our fathers carried their ideas of the powers and duties of government. The increase of population called for a new division of territory. In 1757 Westerly was divided and its northern portion incorporated under the name of Hopkinton, a choice of name which shows that in that legislature the Hopkins party was in the majority. Two years later the new town of Johnston was formed out of Providence and named after the attorney-general. CHAPTER XXII.