"And was it done like a gentleman," fumed the fiery colonel, "to send that letter by the hand of a common post, to be read by everybody in Virginia? I look upon it as an affront, and expect satisfaction!" Fancy the number of affairs of honor that this "complete young sparkish gentleman" would have on hand if he lived in the present year of grace and resented every letter sent him by _the common post_! There is something which strikes us as infinitely diverting in his suggestion that everybody in Virginia would be interested in his letter. But perhaps he was nearer the truth than we realize, for in his day all news came through such sources, and a letter was regarded as a good thing, which it would be gross selfishness not to share with one's neighbors. As for a letter from Europe it was an affair of the greatest magnitude, exciting the interest of the whole community. Those giant folios which entertain us every morning with their gossip from all quarters of the globe had no existence then. Early in the last century, the Colonial Cavalier gleaned all his knowledge of the world and its affairs, from some three-month-old copy of the London papers and magazines, brought over by a British packet. Even this communication, it seems, was uncertain, for complaint is made that the masters of vessels keep the packages till an accidental conveyance offers, and for want of better opportunities frequently commit them to boatmen, who care very little for their goods, so they get their freight. The colonists had struggled to establish a local journal, and a printing press had been started in Virginia in the seventeenth century, but it had been strangled in its infancy by Berkeley, who declared it the parent of treason and infidelity; and so it came about that the Southern Provinces had no public utterance for their news or their views, till the silence was broken by the voice of Maryland, speaking through her _Gazette_, in 1727, when in all America there were only six rival sheets. Franklin says that his brother's friends tried to dissuade him from publishing _The New England Courant_, on the ground that there was already one newspaper in America. His memory lapsed a little, as _The Courant_ had in fact three predecessors, but the incident shows how little notion there was at that time, of the public demand for news. In 1736, was first issued _The Virginia Gazette_, a dingy little sheet about twelve by six inches in size, and costing to subscribers, fifteen shillings a year. The newspaper of the day had no editorial page. Its comments on public affairs were in the form of letters, after the fashion of _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_. It had a poet's corner, where many a young versemaker tried the wings of his Pegasus, and it printed also poetical tributes under the notices of deaths and marriages. In this section, after the record of the wedding of Mr. William Derricoat and Miss Suckie Tomkies, appear these lines: