vii CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION. 1.—Amount of control exercised by the Governor, as the King's II. Attitude assumed by the colonies themselves through their elected representatives was different. III.-There was a gradual but real advance towards freedom of discussion as far as regards ordinary matters. IV. And to a slight extent as regards political matters not af- fecting the interests of the Crown. V. But almost none in political matters affecting the Crown. VI.-Influence of classes on the press, e. g., the Clergy. VII. The class reached by the press directly was small in num- VIII. On the attitude assumed by the press towards authority, IX. At the close of the period under discussion there was no BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDICES. UNIV. OF CALIFORNIA 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. I CHAPTER I THE PRESS IN ENGLAND BEFORE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY MMEDIATELY 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.1 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. 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 mem 1 May, Constitutional History II, p. 103. 2 Collier, Essay on the Law of Patents, and General History of Monopolies. ber 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 where were to be read by the Chief Justice of either Bench or the Lord Chief Baron. 4 Proclamations issued by Queen Elizabeth from time to time,3 indicate the difficulty found in enforcing this monopoly and requirement of licensing, and a proclamation issued by Elizabeth against "bringing into the realm unlawful books" indicates that the statute of Henry VIII 5 repealing the permission given in the reign of Richard III to import books from abroad was being systematically disregarded. Attorneygeneral Popham gives witness to the same effect when in his speech before the Star Chamber in the presecution of Sir R. Knightley and others he says, "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in her great wisdom, hath issued proclamations that no pamphlets or treatises should be put in print but such as should first be seen and allowed; and further, lest that were not sufficient, she ordained that no printing should be used anywhere but in London, Oxford, or Cambridge. Notwithstanding all this served not, but they would print in corners and spread abroad things unprinted: wherefore Her Majesty set forth a proclamation in anno 25 that all Brownist books, and such other seditious books should be suppressed and burnt." The Star Chamber continued to exercise control over printing during the reign of James I, but with increasing difficulty, not lessened by the arbitrary and cruel ways in which it acted towards those whom it believed to be breaking its rules and regulations. The flood of books printed abroad continued into the reign of Charles I, and in 1637 we find a Star Chamber decree, "for reducing the number of master-printers, and punishing all others that should follow the trade, and for prohibiting as well the impression of all new books without license, and of such as have been licensed formerly without a new one, as the importation of all books in the English tongue, printed abroad, and of all foreign books whatever, 3 12 Eliz. 15 Eliz. 18 Eliz. 2r Eliz. 25 Eliz. 26 Eliz. 3r Eliz and 43 Eliz. 4 11 Eliz. 5 25 H. VIII, c. 15, Sect. 1. 61 R. III, c. 9. Sect. 12. 7 State Trials, Vol. I, p. 1263. till a true catalogue has been presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, and the books themselves had been received by their chaplains, or other learned men of their appointment, together with the masters and wardens of the Stationers' Company." A printer disobeying this order was to be fined, disabled from printing thereafter and the printing press forfeited. The quarrel between Charles I and the Long Parliament resulted in the abolition of the Star Chamber, but the only result, as far as the press was concerned, was a change in masters, the Crown giving place to Parliament. From time to time orders were issued by the Parliament similar in tone to those of the Star Chamber. One dated June 14, 1643, directs that "no book, pamphlet, paper, nor part of any such book, pamphlet, or paper, shall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched, or put out to sale, by any person or persons whatsoever unless the same be first approved and licensed under the hands of such persons as both, or either, of the Houses, shall appoint for licensing of the same, and be entered in the Register Book of the Company of Stationers, according to ancient custom, and the printer thereof shall put his name thereto." was in reply to this action by Parliament that Milton produced in 1644 his Areopagitica," that matchless plea for freedom of speech and the liberty of the press. "We should be wary therefore," he writes, "what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life." 9 It But these stirring words fell on ears dulled by the clamor of contending battalions. It is true that from time to time a report of proceedings in Parliament appeared under the title of "Diurnal Occurrences in Parliament," but in general Parliament was ever ready to crush at its first appearance any spirit considered by the members to be dangerous to constituted authority. On Sept. 30, 1647, Parliament, at the instigation of Fairfax, passed an ordinance, "for the better regulation of printing," by which the restrictions were increased and a licenser appointed to whom before printing, all manuscripts had to be presented for approbation. 8 Mar. 9, 1642; June 14, 1643; Sept. 21, 1647. 9 Areopagitica, II, 55. |