some manner informed who or what the author of it is, whether he be rich or poor, old or young, a scholar or a leather-apron man, it will not come amiss to give some account of my past life." She thereupon proceeds to inform her readers that she was in youth an orphan bound out apprentice to a country parson; that he had carefully educated her, and, after many vain attempts to get a wife from among the topping sort of people, had married her. She was now his widow, but might be persuaded to change her state if she could only be sure of getting a good-humored, sober, agreeable man. Till then, she should content herself with the company of her neighbor Rusticus and the town minister Clericus, who lodged with her, and who would from time to time beautify her writings with passages from the learned tongues. Such selections would be both ornamental and fashionable, and to those ignorant of the classics, pleasing in the extreme. To please and amuse was her purpose. Her themes therefore would be as various as her letters, for whoever would please all must be now merry and diverting, now solemn and serious; one while sharp and biting, then sober and religious; ready to write now on politics and now on love. Thus would each reader find something agreeable to his fancy, and in his turn be pleased.

True to this plan, essays, dreams, criticisms, humorous letters came forth at least once a fortnight, till the Dogood papers numbered fourteen. A talk with Clericus on academic education produces a dream, in which Franklin gives vent to the hatred he felt towards Harvard College. A wretched elegy on the death of Mehitabel Kitel suggests a receipt for a New England funeral elegy, and some ridicule on that kind of poetry he calls Kitelic. Now his theme is "Pride and Hoop Petticoats," now "Nightwalkers," now "Drunkenness," now a plan for the relief of those unhappy women who, as a punishment for the pride and insolence of youth, are forced to remain old maids. One week Silence sent an abstract from the "London Journal." The subject was "Freedom of Thought," and, whether written by Benjamin or really borrowed from the "Journal," the article had a special meaning; for James Franklin was at that very time undergoing punishment for exercising freedom of thought.

On the twenty-second of May, 1722, a piratical brigantine with fifty men and four swivel guns appeared off Block Island, took several ships and crews, and began depredations which extended along the New England coast. News of the pirate was quickly sent to Governor Shute of Massachusetts, and by him trans

mitted to the Council on the seventh of June. The next day the House of Representatives resolved to dispatch Captain Peter Papillon in a vessel, strongly armed and manned, in pursuit of the rover; offered a bounty of ten pounds for each pirate killed; and decreed that the ship and cargo of the rovers should be the property of the captors,

The number of the "Courant" containing the sixth of the Dogood papers announced under "Boston News" that the vessel fitted out by the government would sail on the eleventh of June. But elsewhere, in a pretended letter from Newport, were these words: "The government of the Massachusetts are fitting out a ship to go after the Pirates, to be commanded by Captain Peter Papillon, and 'tis thought he will sail some time this month if wind and weather permit."

For this piece of harmless fun the Council summoned James Franklin before them, questioned him sharply, and voted the paragraph "a high affront to this Government." The House of Representatives concurred, and bade the sheriff, under the speaker's warrant, seize James Franklin and lodge him in the stone jail. There for a month he languished, while Benjamin conducted the business of the printing-house and published the " Courant."

With each succeeding issue the newspaper grew more tantalizing, more exasperating, till in January, 1723, James Franklin a second time felt the strong hand of the law. The real cause of displeasure was some remarks on the behavior of Governor Shute, one of the many arrant fools a series of stupid English kings sent over to govern the colonies. He quarreled with the General Court because it would not suffer him to approve or disapprove the speaker; because it ventured to appoint public fasts; interrupted its sessions by long adjournments; suspended military officers, and assumed the direction of Indian wars; and when he could contain himself no longer, he suddenly set off for England. Of this the “Courant" had something to say.

Could any one, it was asked, suppose that the departure of the governor for England with so much privacy and displeasure was likely to promote the welfare of the province when he reached the British court? Would it not be well to send one or two persons of known ability, and born in the province, to the British court, there to vindicate the conduct of the House of Representatives since the late misunderstanding? Ought the ministers to pray for Samuel Shute, Esquire, as immediate governor, and at the same time for the lieu

tenant-governor as commander-in-chief? Was not praying for the success of his voyage, if, as many supposed, he wished to hurt the province, praying in effect for the destruction of the province? The pretended cause of offense was an essay on religious hypocrisy. For publishing this, James Franklin was forbidden by the General Court to "print or publish the New England Courant, or any other such pamphlet or paper of a like nature, except it be first supervised by the Secretary of the Province."

In this strait the printer called his friends about him for advice. Were the order to be obeyed; were James Franklin to go once each week to the office of the secretary, show his manuscript, and ask leave to publish a column or two of extracts from London newspapers five months old, some fulsome praise of Governor Shute, two or three advertisements for the apprehension of runaway apprentices and as many more for runaway slaves, the "Courant" would, they felt, fall at once to the level of the "News Letter" and the "Gazette," and die of dullness in a month. Change the publisher and this would be avoided, and the "Courant" could continue to be as impudent as ever, for the order applied to James Franklin and to him alone. His friends therefore urged him to make the change; their advice was taken, and