Jonas Green, his Family and his Associates

son to Isaiah Thomas forty-three years later, "we had but one press, and
that having the whole business of the government, and no competitor for
public favor, nothing disagreeable to the governor could be got into it. We
procured Rind to come from Maryland to publish a free paper."¹ That Jef-
ferson had not forgotten the situation which existed in 1766 when he wrote
these words in 1809, one learns by reference to the Maryland Gazette at this
period, wherein is to be found a bitter controversy, long extended, between
Royle the Williamsburg printer and certain Virginians who were indignant
with him for refusing to publish their attacks on the local government. In
this connection, one may refer also to the Rev. John Camm's pamphlet on
the Two-penny Act,² printed by Green in 1763, the appendix of which con-
sists of an interchange of correspondence between Camm and Royle, the
latter giving as his reason for refusing to print the pamphlet the fact that
the gentlemen attacked in it were members of an Assembly which had not
been dissolved at the time that the "copy was submitted."

In Virginia, Rind was soon appointed public printer. He established a
newspaper called, as was the rival paper published also in Williamsburg,
The Virginia Gazette. This journal was published regularly by Rind until
his death on August 19, 1773, after which it was continued for a short time
by Clementina Rind who died within two years of her husband. Thomas
says that Clementina Rind was born in Maryland. If this be true, she is
another woman with Maryland associations to be added to the list of those
who have been referred to in this narrative as proprietors of printing estab-
lishments. One is inclined to wonder sometimes if women have been as
rigorously excluded from opportunity in the past as the apostles of feminism
would have us believe.

THOMAS SPARROW, THE FIRST MARYLAND ENGRAVER

It is to be wished that more could be learned of the life and training of
one of the most interesting of the individuals connected with the Green
establishment;³ namely, that Thomas Sparrow who is remembered as the
first Maryland engraver. Very little, however, is known of his life, and be-
cause of its general artistic inferiority no careful study has been made of
his work. From the antiquarian standpoint, however, both Sparrow and
his work have their interest.

¹ Thomas, 2d ed., 1: 336.

² See bibliographical appendix. Copies in Maryland Diocesan Library and New York Historical Society.

³ Of still another of Green's employees, William Poultney, who several times in May 1762 advertised in the
Maryland Gazette that he bound books very neatly, only the name is known. His bindery was "at the Printing
office."

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