About this time newspapers began to be founded; and their effect upon the political life of the country was immediate and immense. Without exception they were democratic, and nationalist in the wider sense. The history of the Welsh Press is a heroic record. These little papers hardly ever secured a sufficiently big circulation to make them self-supporting. Their owners, themselves far from rich, were true patriots, and {238} were content to suffer financial loss year after year. _Seren Gomer_ was first started in 1814, and revived in 1818. In 1835 appeared _Yr Haul_, and _Y Diwygiwr_. But it was not until _Yr Amserau_ began to appear in 1843, under the editorship of the great poet-preacher Gwilym Hiraethog, that Welsh journalism quite realized what it was capable of doing. At last the Welsh people had found an adequate mouthpiece. Soon the "Letters of the Old Farmer" began to appear in _Yr Amserau_; and throughout the troubled, but inspiring, period of Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Kossuth, this paper continued to give Wales a democratic and strong liberal lead. It fought energetically for the repeal of the Corn Laws; and it was the first paper to tell the people clearly--"The enemy is the landlord." From that day, down to the outbreak of the Great War, the political history of Wales consists of an unceasing struggle for the freedom of the tenant, and for the freedom of Nonconformity. Meanwhile other papers and journals were being established. Dr. Lewis Edwards founded _Y Traetliodydd_; and the articles contributed by him to it, when collected and published in a volume, became the Welsh counterpart of Macaulay's Essays. An able journalist, signing himself "S.R.", {239} vigorously championed the cause of the poor and the oppressed in his _Cronicl_. He was a Free Trader, he condemned war, he opposed landlordism, and he advocated a penny postage before anybody else had done so. But perhaps the greatest of all the journalists was Thomas Gee of Denbigh. In 1854 he issued a Welsh Encyclopedia, a mammoth work first issued in parts, and afterwards bound in many volumes, which brought the most up-to-date knowledge into the homes of the people, in their own language, and at a price which they could afford to pay. Three years later he started a weekly paper called _Baner Cymru_, with which _Yr Amserau_ was amalgamated in 1859. The paper won instant popularity; and when the weekly letter of its political correspondent--"Y Gohebydd"--began to appear, its success was assured. No paper did more for the political emancipation, and education, of the people, and to direct their thoughts towards the House of Commons. It would not be long before they claimed to send Welsh speaking democrats to represent them. The supremacy of the squire and the parson was approaching its end.