and planned an extraordinary campaign to
supply the King, both houses of Parliament,
the British public, and people in the other
colonies with a truer picture of actual condi-
tions. In this campaign they used personal
letters, newspaper articles, resolutions and
representations of town meetings and of the
House of Representatives, and even the
protests of a great convention of delegates
from the Massachusetts towns. Colonial
agents in London presented petitions, ap-
peared before legislative committees and
administrative boards, wrote articles for
the newspapers and magazines, and in other
ways sought to convince the British public
that the Boston people were loyal and law-
abiding, and had been grossly maligned by
the official reports.

The sending of troops to Boston was a
most serious episode in the history of the
empire. Nothing similar to it had happened
before. Troops had to be gathered from
Halifax, from the frontiers in Florida, from
the West Indies, and from Ireland. Only
real war had ever before led to such formid-
able military and naval measures. These
conditions created a demand for information
from the seat of trouble that existing agencies
were not prepared to meet. In the days
when there were no war correspondents, no
feature writers for newspapers, and no as-
sociated press dispatches, the means of dis-
seminating information were limited. Libel
laws were severe; articles signed by indi-
viduals protected publishers, but were dis-
counted by the reading public as indicative
of personal bias or some selfish design; and
there was a limit to the patience of the public
with articles signed with fictitious or pen
names. There was real need for an agency
that could portray conditions in Boston, and
supply a service now rendered by the public
press.

It was to give this service, that some
inspired individuals conceived the plan of a
daily journal of happenings in this be-
leaguered town, written in simple, direct
English and supplied to the newspapers of
the empire. The copy was prepared in
Boston by men who were in a position to
know what was going on and who had a
flair for effective newspaper writing. From
Boston the material was sent secretly to
New York and there first published in Holt
New York Journal on Thursday, and re-
printed in the Pennsylvania Chronicle on the
following Saturday. It would seem difficult
at that time to have transmitted a printed
newspaper from New York to Philadelphia,
set new type, and printed a second edition
between Thursday and Saturday.

It is possible that two sets of manuscript
were prepared and dispatched simultane-
ously, one to New York and the other to
Philadelphia. Careful comparison of the
two printed copies, however, shows an
identity of composition that would have
been difficult to secure from separate pen
copies.

This material was originally published
under varying titles. The first installment
of the JOURNAL, covering the dates Sep-
tember 28 to October 3, 1768, was first
published in the New York Journal on
October 13, and subsequent portions ap-
peared regularly with an average lapse of
ten days to two weeks between the dates of
happenings and the time of publication. The
first title of this material was "JOURNAL
of Transactions in BOSTON." In the next
issue the title was a "JOURNAL of the
TIMES." By the fourth issue the heading
became a "JOURNAL of OCCURRENCES",
with Boston used as a place heading as in
all news items. This last title was regularly
used by the New York Journal until publi-
cation ceased. The first title used in the
Boston Evening Post was "JOURNAL of
Transactions in BOSTON," but later por-
tions carry the heading "JOURNAL of the
TIMES." Thus of the three headings used
for this material only two were used regu-
larly: "JOURNAL of the TIMES" in the
Boston papers and those that copied from
them; and "JOURNAL of OCCURRENCES"
in the New York papers and their followers.
It seems clear that the authors in Boston
preferred the heading "JOURNAL of the
TIMES", and that title will be used in the
following discussion.

The first installment of the JOURNAL
had a note to other publishers as follows:
"The above Journal you are desired to publish
for the general satisfaction, it being strictly
fact.". A similar note at the close of the
first installment in the Pennsylvania Chronicle
is somewhat longer and is signed "Amicus."
It would be interesting to know who this

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