A History of Printing in Colonial Maryland

cordiality beneath which lay a sinister intention. One turns from Goddard's
ill-mannered and splenetic accounts of his Philadelphia experience, how-
ever, whenever possible; appreciation of the lack of mental balance which
he exhibited in The Partnership and in other controversial writings of this
period of his life destroys confidence in whatever testimony he offers in his
own behalf. Governor William Franklin, writing to his father in London on
November 13th, I766,¹ gives a version of the formation of the partnership
by Goddard, Galloway and Wharton, which differs only in temper from
that later published in Goddard's pamphlet. It seems, according to His Ex-
cellency of New Jersey, that since the dissolution of the firm of Franklin
and Hall, the anti-Proprietary party of Pennsylvania had been unable to
reach the public through the press. Hall was not favorable to its members,
and whatever they submitted either to him or to Bradford for publication
in their newspapers was sure to be censored by some one in the Proprietary
party before being printed. Reserving a place for Franklin should he desire
it on his return, Messrs. Galloway and Wharton therefore had entered into
partnership with Goddard, for the particular purpose of publishing an anti-
Proprietary newspaper. Goddard had brought several good fonts of type
with him, but having left his press in Providence with his mother, Gover-
nor Franklin and Mrs. Benjamin Franklin had hired to the partners one of
Benjamin's old presses, and rented them the old printing shop in Market
Street.The anti-Proprietary members of the Assembly were to see to it that
Goddard should receive the public work and that his newspaper should be
well patronized. In general, one learns from Governor Franklin, the pros-
pects of the firm were promising, and much satisfactory service was ex-
pected from it by the party which was its patron.²

A little more than a month after this letter was written, on December
23, 1766, Goddard issued from his own shop proposals³ for the publication
of a newspaper to be known as The Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal
Advertiser, and on January 6, 1767, appeared the first issue of a journal
which has been described as the best which was published in Pennsylvania
prior to the Revolution. In a letter from one of the partners, Thomas Whar-
ton, written to Benjamin Franklin a month later, it was asserted that the
new journal had begun publication with seven hundred subscribers.⁴

¹ Franklin Papers, in American Philosophical Society, XLII: 3. Printed in Bigelow, John, The Complete Works
of Benjamin Franklin, 3: 511.

² For another contemporary reference to the new newspaper, see Pennsylvania Magazine of History, 10: 229-
232, letter of Wm. Strahan to David Hall.

³ Evans, No. 10319.

⁴ Franklin Papers in American Philosophical Society, II: 66, dated February 7, 1767.

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