“Such Pieces as Will Most Gratify His Customers”: Patriotism in a Massachusetts Newspaper

Posted on January 19, 2026

“Such Pieces as Will Most Gratify His Customers”: Patriotism in a Massachusetts Newspaper

On January 19, 1776—250 years ago today—John Mycall of Newburyport, MA was going it alone. In 1775 he had partnered with Henry-Walter Tinges as a publisher of the Essex Journal and New-Hampshire Packet. Now Tinges was leaving and Mycall was the newspaper’s sole publisher. In the January 19 issue, Mycall urged subscribers to continue purchasing the paper, promising that “he is determined to be regularly supplyed with all the news-papers on the Continent, and select such pieces only as he thinks will most gratify his customers.”

What gratified Mycall’s customers, evidently, was patriotic, pro-American content. On the issue’s first page is an article headed “An ENGLISH PATRIOT’s CREED.” The author professes loyalty to the king and government of England, but not blind loyalty, believing that liberty under the law must be preserved at all costs: “I believe I ought not, on any pretence, to surrender that invaluable liberty, which has been solemnly confirmed to me”.

The issue reprints news from the British Isles, including from an Irish paper dated November 2 captured from a British ship. The Irish paper and a paper from Portsmouth, NH that had access to London papers from October allowed Mycall to pass along British news, albeit several months late. He chose to reprint articles relating to American-British relations, with a piece on the arrest of an American charged with planning to kidnap King George III and several on Parliament’s debates over whether to continue the war.

The paper also contains material produced closer to home with practical advice for some of its readers. One article reprinted from a Philadelphia paper is a letter from Henry Wisner, who had begun making saltpeter and gunpowder in New York. Wisner provides detailed instructions for making both articles and urges anyone else who is interested in building their own powder mill to contact him: “I therefore most heartily recommend to the good people of this continent to enter into these necessary businesses with spirit.”

Learn about this newspaper (object ID MS.7329, property of Robert Nittolo) on the Ticonderoga Online Collections database: https://fortticonderoga.catalogaccess.com/archives/31129