208

appearance about August 27, 1799. It was printed with
a medium-sized type known as bourgeois, on a folio
sheet, folded once.³⁹ According to the first located
number of the newspaper, that of February 11, 1800,
Smith had already started in the book-selling business,
offering for sale

a few copies of the Constitution of the United
States, with General Washington's Paternal Ad-
dress, annexed.

He informed the citizens of the Shore that there would
be "handbills, cards, blanks, &c. executed at this of-
fice, with neatness and dispatch;" and he would take,
as an apprentice to the printing business, "a lad, from
14 to 16 years of age, of reputable connexions." The
second number now in existence, that of December 23,
1800, is more indicative of Smith's political convic-
tions; it devotes considerable space to an article,
An Epitome of the Life and Character of Thomas Jeffer-
son; and it indicates that the book-selling business
was prospering. Pour titles had "just come to hand."

Smith carried his politics into the only book
(or pamphlet) printing he is known to have done dur-
ing the first year and a half of his printing career;
on September 9, 1800, he issued a six-page octave pam-
phlet, A Test of the Religious Principles of Mr. Jef-

39 Ibid. March 20, 1877.