"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. It is said that a scheme of taxation of our American colonies has for some time been in agitation, that it had been previously debated in the Parliament whether they had power to lay a tax on colonies which had no representative in Parliament and determined in the affirmative,' etc. The occasional insertion of a dash instead of a name, or the wary mention of a 'certain great leader' or 'a certain great personage' tell a simple tale of the jealousy with which the press was then regarded both in England and on the continent. The prosecution of Smollett, Cave, Wilkes and others were still fresh in the minds of printers and writers. "Another despatch informs the readers of the _Gazette_ of an _arrêt_ lately issued for the banishment of the Jesuits from France, and another of a deputation of journeymen silk weavers who waited on the King at St. James with a petition setting forth their grievances from the clandestine importation of French silk, to which His Majesty graciously replied, promising to have the matter properly laid before Parliament. "An extract from a letter from Virginia gives an account of some Indian outrages, and there is some other intelligence of a similar nature. The other news is of a like temporary interest. "I have already mentioned a masonic advertisement. I now give it in full: NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That on _Sunday_, the 24th, being the Festival of _St. Jhon_ (sic), such strange BRETHREN who may have a desire of joining the Merchants Lodge, No. 1, _Quebec_, may obtain Liberty, by applying to _Miles Prenties_, at the Sun, in _St. John Street_, who has Tickets, Price _Five Shillings_, for that Day. "One thing is evident, that a printing establishment of 1764 had to be supplied with abundance of italics and capitals to meet the exigencies of the typographic fashion of the time.