In the previous paragraphs, I have contained myself to the mention of a few facts in the early history of journalism in each of the Provinces of Canada. Proceeding now to a more extended review, we find that a few papers exercised from the outset a very decided influence in political affairs, and it is to these I propose now to refer, especially, before coming down to later times of extended political rights and consequent expansion of newspaper enterprise. The oldest newspaper now in Canada is the Montreal _Gazette_, which was first published as far back as 1787, by one Mesplet, in the French language. It ceased publication for a time, but reappeared about 1794, with Lewis Roy as printer. On the death of the latter, the establishment was assumed by E. Edwards, at No. 135 St. Paul Street, then the fashionable thoroughfare of the town. It was only a little affair, about the size of a large foolscap sheet, printed in small type in the two languages, and containing eight broad columns. In 1805, the Quebec _Mercury_ was founded by Thomas Gary, a Nova Scotian lawyer, as an organ of the British inhabitants, who, at that time, formed a small but comparatively wealthy and influential section of the community. Mr. Gary was a man of scholarly attainments and a writer of considerable force. The _Mercury_ had hardly been a year in existence, when its editor experienced the difficulty of writing freely in those troublous times, as he had to apologize for a too bold censure of the action of the dominant party in the Legislature. But this _contretemps_ did not prevent him continuing in that vein of sarcasm of which he was a master, and evoking, consequently, the ire of the leading Liberals of those days--Stuart, Vanfelson, Papineau, Viger, and others. One of the results of his excessive freedom of speech was an attempt to punish him for a breach of privilege; but he remained concealed in his own house, where, like the conspirators of old times, he had a secret recess made for such purposes, and where he continued hurling his philippics against his adversaries with all that power of invective which would be used by a conscientious though uncompromising old Tory of those days, when party excitement ran so high. The Quebec _Gazette_ was at that time, as in its first years, hardly more than a mere resume of news. [Footnote: From 1783 to 1792, the paper scarcely published a political 'leader,' and so fearful were printers of offending men in power, that the Montreal _Gazette_, so late as 1790, would not even indicate the locality in which a famous political banquet was held, on the occasion of the formation of a Constitutional Club, the principal object of which was to spread political knowledge throughout the country. See Garneau II. 197 and 206.] Hon. John Neilson assumed its editorship in 1796, and continued more or less to influence its columns whilst he remained in the Lower Canada Legislature. In 1808, Mr. Neilson enlarged the size of