Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by

[blocks in formation]

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PRINTED BY THURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON.

PERSONAL MEMOIRS.

*

THE BOSTON COURIER.

In the beginning of the year 1824, the increased and rapidly increasing business and population of Boston seemed to require the establishment of a new daily paper, and to justify a hope that such a project would not prove an abortion. Encouraged by assurances of support from friends among the merchants and manufacturers, a prospectus was issued, which met with so much favor as led to the publication of the first number of the Boston Courier, on the second day of March. The paper was intended to be the especial and avowed advocate of the "American System," in other words, the exponent of the views and purposes of those who were struggling to obtain from Congress the enactment of a protective tariff. In

* Prior to the year 1813, numerous efforts had been made to establish a daily paper in Boston, all of which were unsuccessful, and involved the projectors in pecuniary embarrassments. In that year, the Boston Daily Advertiser appeared, published by Horatio Bigelow and William W. Clapp. These gentlemen sold their interest in the paper to Nathan Hale, under whose management it gained a permanent footing, and still maintains a prominent position, surrounded by a host of cotemporary dailies.

politics, it was proposed to be entirely independent of any attachment to either of the great parties of the time. Early associations had attached me to the Federalists, and my political sympathies, so far as there had been occasion or opportunity for their indulgence, had been exercised in favor of that party. Though the party had then ceased to exist as a distinct organization, yet regard for the men who had been its oracles and leaders, and my entire confidence in their political and moral integrity, had not been diminished or weakened by the disastrous position into which they had fallen. The prominent feature intended to be exhibited in the character of the Courier was uncompromising adherence to what I believed to be the great and overwhelming interest of the country, namely, protection to infant manufactures of cotton and woollen cloths, and to all agricultural, mechanical, and manufacturing products, against foreign competition. In short, to uphold and advocate all measures that could tend to develop the natural resources of the country, and to encourage and support the operations of American labor, ingenuity, and industry. To effect this object was the constant and almost daily task of the editor and his correspondents. In this respect, the Courier stood almost alone. Not a paper in Massachusetts, and not more than three or four in the United States, then appeared as the champions of this policy.* Many supposed that it would destroy all our foreign commerce and navigation, and it was ridiculed as a

* All the exceptions I can now recollect were the Providence Journal, the New-York Statesman, and a paper in Philadelphia, the name of which is forgotten.

« AnteriorContinuar »