The Worcester Magazine (May 1786).
Worcester, Massachusetts: Isaiah Thomas, May 1786. 12 pp measuring 9 ½ x 6 inches. Toned with wear and damage to edges but entirely legible; excellent. Item #List3855 Massachusetts printer and newspaper publisher Isaiah Thomas published The Worcester Magazine between 1786 and 1788 after suspending his weekly Massachusetts Spy in protest of a tax on newspaper advertisements enacted in Massachusetts to pay off Revolutionary War debt. The Magazine printed the same news as the Spy, but also commentary on the progress, or lack thereof, towards a US Constitution. Offered here is a copy of The Worcester Magazine from the second week of May, 1786. Alongside a history of the Revolutionary War from the British Annual Register, regular news, and blurbs about effeminate men and “deceived” young ladies, the newspaper comments on the Congress of the Confederation: “A correspondent wants to know, how long the wise men of America will suffer fools to guide the national helm? [...] It is equally shameful and astonishing, that America, after conquering all her enemies [...] should, by withholding the necessary powers from Congress, languish in disjointed poverty, and thereby invite the insults of all the rascals in creation. Such inconsistent, unnational conduct, demonstrates the want and necessity of a MASTER; and if much longer persisted in, will produce ONE. [...] If they have not the virtue to be freemen, let them be slaves, and lick the dust of a tyrant’s foot. [...]” At the foot of the final page is a request for Massachusettsans to “instruct their Representatives” to have the “unjust, or impolitick” tax on newspaper advertisements repealed.
Price: $200.00