“The Boston Gazette” appeared on December 21, 1719. One day after, December 22, 1719, Andrew Bradford started “The American Weekly Mercury” at Philadelphia. On August 17, 1721, James Franklin started “The New England Courant,” on which Benjamin Franklin learned the trade of printer. After an existence of seven years its publication ceased. On October 23, 1725, William Bradford started “The New York Gazette.” “The New England Weekly Journal” succeeded “The Boston Gazette” and “Courant” in 1727. “The Maryland Gazette,” the first paper published in that colony, appeared in 1727. In 1728 Samuel Keimer started “The Universal Instructor in all the Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette,” at Philadelphia. The following year Benjamin Franklin bought Keimer’s plant, and shortened the name to “The Pennsylvania Gazette.” The first paper in the colony of South Carolina, called “The South Carolina Gazette,” was published on January 8, 1731. On November 5, 1733, “The New York Weekly Journal” appeared as a rival to the “Gazette.” In 1736 the first newspaper appeared in Virginia. It was published at Williamsburg, and was called “The Virginia Gazette.” In 1739 a German newspaper appeared at Germantown, Pa., and another, in 1743, at Philadelphia. All these pioneer papers, with the exception of a few, notably “The Pennsylvania Gazette” under Franklin, and “The New York Weekly Journal” under Zenger, were merely news purveyors, or, if any opinions were expressed, they were in accord with the authorities of the day. After 1745 the press of the colonies became more independent and progressive, in obedience to a demand for literature bearing upon the questions relating to the coming revolution. New journals of the weekly class sprang up with considerable rapidity and, for the most part, in opposition to England’s methods of colonial government. Among these were “The Boston Independent Advocate,” started under the auspices of Samuel Adams, in 1748; “The New Hampshire Gazette,” in 1756; “The Boston Gazette and Country Gentleman,” in 1755; the “Newport (R. I.) Mercury,” in 1758; “The Connecticut Courant,” in 1764. [Illustration: HORACE GREELEY. Founder of “New York Tribune.”] By 1775, the commencement of the struggle for independence, the colonial press numbered thirty publications, all weekly. Of these, seven were published in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire, two in Rhode Island, three in Connecticut, eight in Pennsylvania, and three in New York. In the first year of the war eight new weeklies were added to the list, four of them being in Philadelphia. On December 3, 1777, the first newspaper, “The Gazette,” appeared in New Jersey, and in 1781, the first in Vermont, “The Gazette or Green Mountain Post Boy.” Such was the fatality overhanging the colonial press that, of the sixty-three newspapers which had come into existence prior to 1783, only forty-three survived at that date.