seen in the case of Clarke and Monroe counties. In the former, from sixteen persons, property amounting to $1,700 was impressed. In Monroe, from thirty-seven persons, $60,000 worth was taken. The delay in payment was so long that it was practically worthless when received.[32] (_Concluded next month._) [Illustration: Fleuron] THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CONDITIONS IN THE ROYAL COLONY OF NEW YORK. CHAPTER I THE PRESS IN ENGLAND BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Immediately on the introduction of printing the Church assumed towards it an attitude at once intimate and watchful. Since all that affected the welfare of the mind and the health of the soul was of importance to the Church, it was not at all surprising that the demand was at once made that nothing should be put forth by the press save that which had received the sanction—the “Imprimatur”—of the Diocesan authority, or later of the official delegated by the personal representative of the Papacy. The rules that were laid down for the direction of the printer were full and explicit, and no resistance seems to have been attempted at the period of the Reformation in England, the power of supervision over all forms of printing passed from the hands of the Church to the civil authority. This followed naturally from the theory that the King, as Head of the Church, inherited all rights of oversight in matters of opinion and morals formerly pertaining to the Pope, and exercised in England by the Bishops in his name. The Henrician and Elizabethan Bishops still gave the “Imprimatur,” but it was now as representing the King. The fact of publication without authority was in itself a crime deserving of severe punishment.[33] A further step in the restriction of printing was the establishment (in line with the general tendencies of the time), of monopolies by patent. In 1557 the Stationers’ Company was formed of ninety-seven London stationers, and to it was committed the sole right to print books licensed by the proper authority.[34] As representing the Sovereign, the Star Chamber exercised a supervision over the manner in which the law was carried out; in 1559 it ordered that all books were to read by a Bishop or a member of the Privy Council before going to the press, and in 1586 gave permission for a printing press to be set up in each University, the licenser in this case being the Vice Chancellor. In the same year the Star Chamber ordered that all books were to be read and licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, with the exception of law books which were to be read by the Chief Justice of either Bench or the Lord Chief Baron.