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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

III.

Neither the necessary capital nor the necessary skill was tohe found. Freedom too was wanting, a want as fatal as thatof either capital or skill. The press was not indeed at thatmoment under a general censorship. The licensing act, whichhad been passed soon after the Restoration, had expired in1679. Any person might therefore print, at his own risk, ahistory, a sermon, orapoem, without the previous approba-tion of any public officer; but the Judges were unanimouslyof opinion that this liberty did not extend to Gazettes, andthat, by the common law of England, no man, not authorisedby the crown, had a right to publish political news. * Whilethe Whig party was still formidable, the government thoughtit expedient occasionally to connive at the violation of thisrule. During the great battle of the Exclusion Bill, manynewspapers were suffered to appear, the Protestant Intel-ligence, the Current Intelligence, the Domestic Intelligence,the True News, the London Mercury.** None of these waspublished oftener than twice a week. None exceeded in sizea single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one ofthem contained in a year was not more than is often found intwo numbers of the Times. After the defeat of the Whigs itwas no longer necessary for the King to be sparing in the useof that which all his Judges had pronounced to be his un-doubted prerogative. At the close of his reign no newspaperwas suffered to appear without his allowance: and his allow-ance was given exclusively to the London Gazette. TheLondon Gazette came out only on Mondays and Thursdays,The contents generally were a royal proclamation, two orthree Tory addresses, notices of two or three promotions, anaccount of a skirmish between the imperial troops and theJanissaries on the Danube, a description of a highwayman,

* London Gazette, May 5. and It. 1C80.

•* There is a very curious, and, I should think, unique collection ofthese papers in the British Museum.