private scandal'--a pledge better kept than such promises are generally.
There was a very slender allowance of news from Riga, St. Petersburg,
London, New York and Philadelphia; but there was one ominous item, that
Parliament was about imposing taxes on the Colonies, though they were
without representation in that Parliament. The latest English news was
to the 11th April; the latest American to the 7th May. Only two
advertisements appeared--one of a general store, of dry goods,
groceries, hardware, all the _olla podrida_ necessary in those days; the
other from the Honourable Commissioner of Customs, warning the public
against making compositions for duties under the Imperial Act. This
sheet, for some years, had no influence on public opinion; for it
continued to be a mere bald summary of news, without comment on
political events. Indeed, when it was first issued, the time was
unfavourable for political discussion, as Quebec had only just become an
English possession, and the whole country was lying torpid under the
military administration of General Murray. It is, however, a fact not
very generally known even yet, except to a few antiquarians, that there
was a small sheet published in British America, called the Halifax
_Gazette_ [Footnote: In a letter of Secretary Cotterell, written in
1754, to Captain Floyer, at Piziquid (Windsor), he refers to M. Dandin,
a priest in one of the Acadian settlements: 'If he chooses to play _bel
esprit_ in the Halifax _Gazette_, he may communicate his matter to the
printer as soon as he pleases, as he will not print it without showing
it to me.--See Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia, vol. 2, p. 234] just
twelve years before the appearance of the Quebec paper. From 1769 we
commence to find regular mention of the Nova Scotia _Gazette and Weekly
Chronicle_, published on Sackville Street by A. Fleury, who also printed
the first Almanac in Canada, in 1774. One of the first newspapers
published in the Maritime Provinces was the _Royal Gazette and New
Brunswick Advertiser_, which appeared in 1785 in St. John, just founded