Yea,
friends, let us speak ever well of the King, the clergy,
the nobility and of all persons of wealth and substantial
holdings. But beyond this"--here Brenton Coxton's eye
flashed,--"let us speak with utter fearlessness of all
men. So shall we be, if I may borrow a mighty good word
from Tacitus his Annals, of a complete independence,
hanging on to no man. In fact our venture shall be an
independent newspaper."
The listeners felt an instinctive awe at the words, and
again a strange prescience of the future made itself felt
in every mind. Here for the first time in history was
being laid down that fine, fearless creed that has made
the independent press what it is.
Meantime Caxton continued to glance his eye over the news
sheet, murmuring his comments on what he saw,--"Ah! vastly
fine, Master Nicholas,--this of the sailing of His
Majesty's ships for Spain,--and this, too, of the Doge
of Venice, his death, 'tis brave reading and maketh a
fair discourse. Here also this likes me, 'tis shrewdly
devised," and here he placed his finger on a particular
spot on the news sheet,--"here in speaking of the strange
mishap of my Lord Arundel, thou useth a great S for
strange, and setteth it in a line all by itself whereby
the mind of him that reads is suddenly awakened, alarmed
as it were by a bell in the night.
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