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CHAPTER VIII
JAMES RIVINGTON
AND HIS “LYING GAZETTE”
ONE of the first, if not the very first, of the issues of Rivington’s press was “Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer; or the Connecticut, New-Jersey, Hudson’s-River, And Quebec Weekly Advertiser,” all of which wide-spreading title was divided by a poorly executed type-metal cut, labeled “The London Packet.” The first number, dated April 22, 1773, followed a well-written four-page prospectus, in which Rivington promised a better journal than any that had previously appeared in the colonies. In point of news he carried
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out his prospectus, and the political articles from his contributors are rivaled only in the earlier numbers of Zenger’s “Journal and Goddard’s “Pennsylvania Chronicle.” With his eighteenth number Rivington improved the “cut” and left off the legend. The numerous advertisements and the almost continuous series of “supplements” issued for their accommodation show how successful the “Gazette” was from the start. In October, 1774, Rivington inserted the following announcement in his seventy-eighth number:
The weekly impression of this Gazetteer is lately increased to Three Thousand Six Hundred, a number far beyond the most sanguine expectations of the Printer’s warmest friends; as the presses of very few, if any, of his brethren, including those of Great Britain, exceed it. This paper is constantly distributed thro’ every colony of North America, most of the English, French, Spanish, Dutch and Danish West India islands, the principal cities and towns of Great
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Britain, France, Ireland, and in the Mediterranean. Such an extensive circulation fully evinces the great advantages found by every one that sends advertisements to be published in it. And whilst the Printer continues to do ample justice to all opinions in the unhappy dispute with the mother country, be doubts not of being honoured with the unremitted approbation and patronage of all those whom it is his highest ambition to please. The subscribers acquired by him since the 9th of June last, amount to upwards of five hundred, after allowing for every one who by death or other causes, has diminished the number.
With number fifty-five he began to add to the heading the statement that the paper was “Printed at his ever open and uninfluenced Press,” and it was conducted with great impartiality as well as ability until toward the close of 1774, when it became decidedly Tory in its tone. In November of that year, when most American editors were withdrawing the royal arms from the
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headings, Rivington inserted them in place of his cut of the ship. Perhaps the following “Extract of a Letter from London to a Gentleman in this city” may explain the change in Rivington’s line of conduct. It was issued as a handbill in New York on July 25, 1774, and read:
It is the Purpose of Lord North to offer one of your Printers Five Hundred Pounds, as an Inducement to undertake and promote, Ministerial Measures.
Perhaps native prejudice and a confidence in the certain success of the British regulars over the provincials influenced him. The material at hand does not justify me in venturing an opinion. The result, however, was that the paper became more feared and hated by the Whigs than any of its Tory contemporaries. Rivington’s office was twice mobbed, and on the second occasion he was deprived of
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the means of continuing his paper by the destruction of his presses and the conversion of his type into bullets for American use. I have already said something of all this, as well as of his going to England and of his return to New York. On October 4, 1777, the “Gazetteer” resumed its weekly appearance, but a couple of weeks later the name was changed to “Rivington’s New York Loyal Gazette.” Another change was made in December, when the paper became “The Royal Gazette,” under which title it continued to appear—twice a week after April, 1778—until the end of the war. Its unsparing attacks upon “the rebels” aroused an animosity which found vent in Freneau’s poetry,1 Witherspoon’s prose, and the popular nick-naming of the paper “Rivington’s Lying Gazette.” Of the opprobrious
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1 One of Freneau’s attacks was on the occasion of the introduction of a new cut of the [footnote continues on page 138] royal arms in the heading of the “Gazette.” It runs, in part:
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“From the regions of night, with his head in a sack,
Ascended a person accoutred in black,
And leaning his elbow on Rivington’s shelf
While the printer was busy, thus mus’d with himself—
‘My mandates are fully complied with at last;
New arms are engraved, and new letters are cast;
I therefore determine, and freely accord,
This servant of mine shall receive his reward.’
Then turning about to the printer he said,
Who late was my servant shall now be my aid;
Since under my banners so bravely you fight,
Kneel down! For your merits I dub you a knight;
From a passive subaltern I bid you to rise—
The inventor, as well as the printer of Lies.”
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epithet it was no more deserving than was Gaine’s paper; the tales of British prowess and loyalist sufferings which appeared in the latter are not a whit less fabulous nor a paragraph
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less numerous than those printed by Rivington. It is quite likely that Rivington told the truth so often and so plainly (in which form it is frequently more unpalatable than falsehood) that the Whigs called him a liar whether he was or not. To this kind of abuse, however, he was impervious, and when threatened with personal violence he more than once showed great tact in escaping. An instance of this, told by Curwen, although frequently reprinted, cannot be omitted here. It is given as told in Rivington’s own words:
I was sitting down, after a good dinner, with a bottle of Madeira before me, when I heard an unusual noise in the street, and a huzza from the boys. I was on the second story, and, stepping to the window, saw a tall figure in tarnished regimentals, with a large cocked hat and an enormously long sword, followed by a crowd of boys, who occasionally cheered him with huzzas, of which he seemed quite unaware. He came up to my door and stopped. I could see
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no more—My heart told me it was Ethan Allen. I shut my window, and retired behind my table and my bottle. I was certain the hour of reckoning had come—there was no retreat. Mr. Staples, my clerk, came in, paler than ever, clasping his hands—“Master, he has come!” “I know it.” I made up my mind, looked at the Madeira, possibly took a glass. “Show him up, and if such Madeira cannot mollify him, he must be harder than adamant.” There was a fearful moment of suspense; I heard him on the stairs, his long sword clanking at every step. In he stalked. “Is your name James Rivington?” “It is, sir, and no man can be more delighted to see Colonel Ethan Allen.” “Sir, I have come—” “Not another word, my dear Colonel, until you have taken a seat and a glass of old Madeira.” “But, sir, I don’t think it proper—” “Not another word, Colonel, but taste this wine; I have had it in glass ten years.” He took the glass, swallowed the wine, smacked his lips, and shook his head approvingly. “Sir, I come—” “Not another word until you have taken another glass, and then, my dear Colonel, we will talk of old officers, and I have some queer events to detail.” In short, we finished three bottles of Madeira, and parted as good friends as if we never had cause to be otherwise.
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After the evacuation of New York by the British, Rivington dropped the cut of the arms which he had introduced into his heading in 1777, and November 22, 1783, altered the name of the paper to “Rivington’s New-York Gazette, and Universal Advertiser.” In this form he endeavored to continue its publication, but it failed to meet with support, and its last number appeared on December 31, 1783.
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