These attempts to impart
energy to weakness, and terror to insignificance, gave to the articles
of many old newspapers the aspect of auction bills, rather than
political disquisitions.

The reader of a better era may fancy this description shaded; but the
writer, in preparing this work, has explored many a volume, and shudders
at the memory of his toils: he would not assign them to his worst enemy.
Such were not all: there were writers on either side, whose opposition
was discriminating, and who enlightened the understanding without
debasing the taste. The press was the more licentious, because nothing
else was free; but it raised a barrier against official corruption. Men
of integrity were annoyed, but rarely injured. It intimidated the
corrupt, and protected the oppressed. Considered in detail it was often
detestable; but it prevented mischief more serious and lasting.

These contentions embittered colonial life: they were daily renewed. The
topics they embraced were rarely interesting beyond the moment: they
filled the ephemeral publications of the day, and they now lie entombed
in those repositories of the literary dead.

From 1831 to the termination of Arthur's government, the circulation of
newspapers prodigiously increased: the improvement of the postal
establishment facilitated their spread. Settlers, who delighted in their
controversies, or dreaded their censure, subscribed to them all. With a
few honorable exceptions they rivalled each other in recklessness of
statement and roughness of diction. No lover of truth will accept their
testimony, or transmit their praises. They were often what they were
denominated by the chief justice--"a moral guillotine."

The spirit of contention was promoted by the peculiar fabric of society.
The great majority of the colonists were below the period of human life,
when the temper becomes cautious and the passions calm. Its narrow
sphere magnified their temporary importance. Every man might claim, or
forfeit benefits the government could bestow, and thus multitudes had
personal grievances, or unsatisfied expectations. The hostilities of the
day were almost invariably associated with some sense of individual
wrong. A grant of land desired by one, was given to another; a valuable
servant was denied on some public pretence, and then assigned to a
favored applicant. One found his mercantile tenders always rejected,
while another, by some unintelligible process, engrossed the cu