'Supposing the press in order, the people in their right wits, and news or no news to be the question, a public _Mercury_ should never have my vote, because I think it makes the multitude too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too pragmatical and censorious, and gives them not only an itch, but a kind of colorable right and license.... A gazette is none of the worst ways of address to the genius and humor of the common people, whose affections are much more capable of being turned and wrought upon by convenient hints and touches in the shape and air of a pamphlet than by the strongest reason and best notions imaginable under any other and more sober form whatsoever.... So that upon the main I perceive the thing requisite (for aught I can see yet). Once a week may do the business, for I intend to utter my news by weight, not by measure. Yet if I shall find, when my hand is in, and after the planting and securing of my correspondents, that the matter will fairly furnish more, without either uncertainty, repetition, or impertinence, I shall keep myself free to double at pleasure. One book a week may be expected, however, to be published every Thursday, and finished upon the Tuesday night, leaving Wednesday entire for the printing of it.'
The Newspaper was evidently developing itself--correspondents were a new feature--but still it was very tardy and very far from being free. Fancy a newspaper in the present day with no news more recent than that of the day before yesterday! In 1663 the title of _Public Intelligencer_ was exchanged for that of _The Oxford Gazette_, so called because the court had gone to Oxford on account of the plague. After the court's return to the metropolis, _London_ was substituted, in 1666, for _Oxford_, and from that date to the present this, the first official or semi-official organ, has gone by the name of _The London Gazette_. The king caused an edition of it to be published in French, for the convenience, probably, of his accommodating banker, Louis the Fourteenth, and this edition continued to appear for about twenty years.
Charles the Second was an unsparing and unscrupulous foe to the press, and put in practice every possible form of oppression in order to crush it. One's blood boils at the perusal of the persecutions to which the struggling apostles of freedom of speech were subjected, so that the contempt which this miserable 'king of shreds and patches' inspires in other respects wellnigh changes into positive hatred. But despite of fine and imprisonment, scourge and pillory, the press toiled on steadily toward its glorious goal. The Newspaper began to assume--as far as its contents were concerned--the appearance which it wears at the present day. Straggling advertisements had long ago appeared, the first on record being one offering a reward for the recovery of two horses that had been stolen. This appeared in the first number of the _Impartial Intelligencer_, in 1648. Booksellers and the proprietors of quack medicines were among the earliest persons to discover the advantages of advertising, and in 1657 came out the _Public Advertiser_, which consisted almost entirely of advertisements. The following curious notification appeared in the _Mercurius Politicus_, of September 30, 1658: