To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer
‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only’. yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. it is a melancholy
truth that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s
abandoned prostitution to falsehood. nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious
by being put into that polluted vehicle . . . I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens,
who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in
their time . . . I will add that the man who never looks into a news paper is better informed than he who reads them: inasmuch
as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors.
letter from
Thomas Jefferson
to john norvell, june 11, 1807.
78
Virginia gazettes from 1741-1783.
12. v.
fol. &
1 vol.
4
to.
1815 Catalogue, page 26. no. 88. Virginia gazettes from 1741 to 1783, 12 v fol. and 1 vol. 4to.
1831 Catalogue, page 66. J. 231. Virginia Gazette, from 1746 to 1783, by Parks, 12 v. folio.
Five separate publications named the Virginia Gazette are included within the dates specified by Jefferson as follows:
i.
The Virginia Gazette. Containing the freshest Advices, foreign and domestick.
Williamsburg: Printed by
W. Parks,
1741-1750.
Folio. Weekly.
Parsons, page 306.
Brigham, page 1158.
Clayton-Torrence 132.
Wroth 84.
Evans 4831 (and later numbers in the subsequent years).
Loyalist. The first newspaper printed in Virginia. Begun by William Parks on August 6, 1736, and continued until his death
on April 1, 1750.
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ii.
The Virginia Gazette, with the freshest Advices, foreign and domestic.
Williamsburg: Printed by
William Hunter [later by
Joseph Royle,
Alexander Purdie,
Purdie and Dixon,
John Dixon and
William Hunter successively],
1751-1778.
Folio and Quarto. Weekly.
Parsons, page 307.
Brigham, page 1159.
Clayton-Torrence 200 (and later numbers).
Evans 6794 (and later numbers).
Loyalist. A successor to Parks’ Gazette. Established by William Hunter in January 1751.
[536]
iii.
Rind’s Virginia Gazette [later re-named The Virginia Gazette]. Open to all parties but influenced by none.
Williamsburg: Printed by
William Rind,
1766-1776.
Folio and Quarto. Weekly and bi-weekly.
Parsons, page 306, 309.
Brigham, page 1161.
Clayton-Torrence 330 (and later numbers).
Evans 10481 (and later numbers).
Opposition. William Rind was invited by Jefferson to establish this paper in opposition to the existing Gazettes which he
considered too much under the influence of the Government. The first number appeared on Friday May 16, 1766. Rind died in
August 1773, and the paper was continued by his widow Clementina Rind until her death in the following year. John Pinkney then became the editor, later the owner of the Gazette, which he changed from a weekly to a bi-weekly publication. He died
in 1777.
[537]
