By 1703 Great Britain was ripe for a daily newspaper, and in that year one appeared under the name of “The Daily Courant.” The advent of this enterprise gave further impetus to newspaper publication. The English press of the eighteenth century rose into great popular favor. It was able, and quite too independent for royalty and royal courtier. For corrupt and ambitious government it often became a whip of scorpions, and in revenge was both severely taxed and invidiously censored. But it seemed to prosper amid opposition and persecution, and by 1776 fifty-three newspapers were published in London alone. During the reign of George III. (1760–1820) the history of the English newspaper is one of criminal persecutions, amid which editors and contributors were repeatedly defeated, and sometimes severely punished; yet it is doubtful if at any period the press gained greater strength from protracted conflict, or turned ignominious penalties into more signal triumphs. It is significant that out of this dark, tumultuous, and forbidding era sprang many of the newspapers whose influence is most potential to-day in English affairs of state and in the literature of journalism. The era marks the turn in newspaper values. The establishment became a concrete thing, a lively property, an energy composed of practical business minds, surrounded and supported by the best procurable literary talent, adapted for treating diversified topics. Thus “The London Morning Chronicle,” founded in 1789, rose to be a property in 1823 which sold for $210,000; while “The Morning Post” not only gave to Coleridge his fame as one of the greatest of publicists, but enlisted the brilliant attainments of Mackintosh, Southey, Young, and Moore. The sturdy “London Times,” which dates from 1785, and for years encountered malignant royal hostility, proved itself strong enough to brave the government and at the same time sufficiently enterprising to introduce steam printing and every mechanism calculated to give it precedence as a metropolitan journal. As a property, it is to-day worth a figure incredible at the beginning of the century, and so powerful was its hold on popular favor for the first half of the century that no other daily could compete with it. Indeed, it may be said to have had a lone field up to the establishment of “The Daily News,” in 1846, “The Daily Telegraph,” in 1855, and “The Standard,” in 1857.