At that time, there was no newspaper-press in the Colonies which was conducted with greater ability than Rivington's New- York Gazetteer ; or Connecticut, Hudson's River, New-Jersey, and Quebec/: Weekly Advertiser, which was published, weekly, by James Rivington, in the City of New York. It was a newspaper, in the proper sense of the word ; and it published the news of the day, from every quarter of the world, regardless of their political character, with rare industry and the most liberal impartiality. It did not accord with the interests of some nor with the passions of others, however, that such a faithful recorder of the sayings and doings of every faction and of every party should be continued in the Colonies ; and there were times, also, when the exposure of the double dealings of particular individuals, of high as well as of low degree, in well-printed columns, in a widely circulated newspaper, as James Rivington had done, in his Gazetteer, were distasteful to those who were thus exposed and unwelcome to those whom the culprit was serving. It was evidently determined, therefore, that James Rivington should be silenced; and that his only means for inflicting pain on the persons of those who favored the Rebellion should be taken from him.
There was, also, at that time, no one, in the Colony of New York, who possessed greater intellectual and executive abilities combined with superior scholastic attainments, than Samuel Seabury, a Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, ordinarily known as " The Venerable " Society," Kector of the Established Church in the