h Parliament,'
mention is made in 1662 'of a very extraordinary question' which 'arose
about preventing the publication of the debates of the Irish Parliament
in an English newspaper called _The Intelligencer_, and a letter was
written from the Speaker to Sir Edward Nicholas, the English Secretary
of State, to prevent these publications in those diurnalls, as they call
them.' In 1661, _The Parliamentary Intelligencer_ was turned into _The
Kingdom's Intelligencer_, and this last appellation was again changed
for that of _The Public Intelligencer_ in 1663. The celebrated Roger
L'Estrange, who was then the public licenser, was the editor of this
paper, as also of an extra Thursday issue called _The News_. In the
first number of this old friend with a new face, he says, among other
pros and cons as to the desirability of a newspaper:

'Supposing the press in order, the people in their right wits, and
news or no news to be the question, a public _Mercury_ should never
have my vote, because I think it makes the multitude too familiar
with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too pragmatical
and censorious, and gives them not only an itch, but a kind of
colorable right and license.... A gazette is none of the worst ways
of address to the genius and humor of the common people, whose
affections are much more capable of being turned and wrought upon
by convenient hints and touches in the shape and air of a pamphlet
than by the strongest reason and best notions imaginable under any
other and more sober form whatsoever.... So that upon the main I
perceive the thing requisite (for aught I can see yet). Once a week
may do the business, for I intend to utter my news by weight, not
by measure. Yet if I shall find, when my hand is in, and after the
planting and securing of my correspondents, that the matter will
fairly furnish more, without either uncertainty, repetition, or
impertinence, I shall keep myself free to double at pleasure. One
book a week may be expected, however, to be published every
Thursday, and finished upon the Tuesday night, leaving Wednesday
entire for the printing of it.'

The Newspaper was evidently developing itself--correspondents were a new
feature--but still it was very tardy and very far from being free. Fancy
a newspaper in the present day with no news more recent than that of the
day before yesterday